Forget Letterman: This Is the Late Show

New York may be the city that never sleeps, but that theory will be tested by the 8:09 p.m. starting times of Games 1 and 2 here, meaning 11:09 in the Eastern zone.

“I’m not here to gripe about it, but it sure seems unfair to our fans,” Met Manager Bobby Valentine said. “Not only do they have to stay up late to watch it, but they can’t go to their favorite place because most of those establishments will be closed by the fifth inning, especially in the middle of the week. I think it’s really weird. People will have a tough time getting up for work because they stayed up to watch the game.”

With three Eastern teams (the Mets, Yankees and Boston Red Sox) in the playoffs, only so many time slots and the networks dictating the postseason schedule, there were not many options, a baseball official said.

The options were either 1 p.m. or 8 p.m., and Jerry Colangelo, Arizona’s managing general partner, acknowledged that he lobbied hard for the night slot, saying that the Diamondbacks did not have one mid-week day game at home this year because of conflicts.

“What we pointed out is that at 1 o’clock we have a problem with parking downtown and we have a problem with people working at the ballpark [because of other jobs],” Colangelo said. “There would have been some problems, but we didn’t have a vote.”

Maybe not, the baseball official said, “but we always want to try and do what’s best for ownership.”

Of course, pulling the plug on the nation’s largest market may not be what’s best for ratings or baseball, but Kenny Rogers, the Mets’ Game 2 starter, said, “if I know Mets fans, none of them will be going to sleep.”

And a Stamford, Conn., restaurant owner named Bobby Valentine said fans would be welcome at any hour.

“We never close,” the Met manager said with a smile.

METS’ KENNY ROGERS

(5-1, 4.03 ERA)

vs.

DIAMONDBACKS’ TODD STOTTLEMYRE

(6-3, 4.09 ERA)

Bank One Ballpark, 8 p.m. PDT

TV--ESPN.

* Update--Stottlemyre says it is “probably a miracle” that he will be starting tonight. He was 4-1 and returning dividends on the four-year, $32-million contract he signed as a free agent when he suffered partial tears of the rotator cuff and labrum pitching against the San Francisco Giants on May 17. “There was so much uncertainty I didn’t know if I would ever pitch again,” he said. The 34-year-old right-hander opted for therapy rather than an operation that might have sidelined him for 18 to 24 months. “I’ve been called a lot of things like stubborn and hard headed,” he said. “but I wasn’t trying to prove anything. I’m paid to pitch, and at 34 I wanted to get back on the mound as fast as I could.” Stottlemyre returned on Aug. 20. He insists that his arm feels great, but he has given up 48 hits and 23 runs in 44 innings since his return. “The results have been on and off, but physically I feel I can do what I did before,” he said.