Football's finished, baseball hasn't started yet, and March Madness and the NBA and NHL playoffs are still weeks or months away.
But for cricket fans, these are the best of times, even if the 2011 Cricket World Cup is on television at some ungodly hours.
The tournament, which takes place once every four years, began last weekend and runs through the beginning of April with matches in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
That means the action begins at 1 a.m. PST and ends around 8:30 a.m.
What's a cricket fan to do? Whatever it takes: gulp coffee, sleep through lunch, call in sick, you name it.
Sarabjip "Sunny" Singh, a 43-year-old Union City cricket player and U.S. Postal Service employee, scheduled vacation for next week to watch the matches, and has sprinkled in more vacation days to follow the nights when India is scheduled to play.
How does his wife feel about him spending his vacation days in bed and nights glued to the television? "She's OK," he said. "She knows I have a passion for cricket."
Rocky Singh, a Fremont cricket enthusiast, has a different plan for catching up on sleep after watching India's matches.
"I own my own company," he said. "I have a manager take care of things."
This is an especially big tournament for India, which is not only a co-host, but a favorite to win its first title since 1983.
The squad, which has a reputation for not coming through in the clutch, already has avenged its 2007 tournament-ending loss to Bangladesh.
Pakistan, which was a favorite four years ago, has lower expectations this time after three of its top players were barred because of a match-fixing scandal.
The tournament will be viewed by hundreds of millions fans, many of whom live in South Asia where cricket is king, but also in other parts of the British Commonwealth, including South Africa, the West Indies, New Zealand and Australia, the reigning champion.
In the Bay Area, fans used to flock to Bollywood movie theaters and restaurants to watch the seven-hour matches. But this year, with the games on late at night and available on satellite television for $129, most fans are watching in their living rooms.
"I prefer watching it at my house," Rocky Singh said. "You can relax, you can scream, you can crack jokes while you're watching it. In a theater, you have to be considerate."
In Fremont, fans used to go to the NAZ8 Cinemas for games, but the theater, which changed its name and is under new ownership, isn't showing them this year.
"It was a lot of fun over there," Sarabjip Singh said. But Singh this year bought the satellite package, which used to be a lot more expensive. He and his son are staying up late to watch the matches with the help of a lot of tea and snacks.
If India advances, they'll probably go to a house party for the big game, but it'll be hard to top the 1983 victory, Singh said. At the time, his family in India was one of the first in his neighborhood to have a television.
"All the neighbors were in our house watching the match," he said. "We were dancing into the middle of the night."
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