I've said this before and I'll say it again and again...I hate Sunday night games! I'm not talking about Sunday night football games. There's a reason why Sunday Night Football is the highest rated show on television. I'm talking about Sunday night baseball games. I'm not against them on principle, and I like the fact that its the only exclusive nationally-televised game each week. But that doesn't change my general opinion about Sunday Night Baseball.
My biggest problem with Sunday night games is the travel aspect. Two weeks ago, the Yankees and Red Sox played a Sunday night game in Fenway that went 11 innings and lasted past 1:00 in the morning. The Yankees then flew to Texas, landed at 7 a.m., and played the Rangers that night. It goes without saying that they were completely flat and lost the game. The Red Sox were staying home to start a series with the Rays, who were in Boston and checked into their hotel by the middle of the game. Last night's game was Braves vs. Cardinals in Atlanta. After the game, the Cardinals got on a plane for Pittsburgh to start a series with the Pirates, who put up a four-spot in the first and won 9-2 tonight. Again, no real surprise here.
It would be fine if every team had to do this once or twice a season, but, much like Sunday Night Football, the network (in this case ESPN) gets a lot of control when it comes to the Sunday Night Baseball schedule. That's why every time the Yankees play the Red Sox in Fenway or the Cubs play the Cardinals at Wrigley, the series is inevitably on the weekend. Why? So that FOX can have the Saturday game and ESPN can have the Sunday game. The marquee teams almost always play the maximum of Sunday night games you can during a season. Meanwhile, teams like the Marlins and Blue Jays are never selected to play on Sunday night. In a way, a handful teams are penalized for being good/popular by having to play on Sunday night.
The big difference between Sunday Night Football and Sunday Night Baseball is that football is a once-a-week sport. It doesn't matter that the Sunday night game ends near midnight because the players don't have another game until the following week. In baseball, more often than not, they're playing the next day. Maybe they'll get lucky and have Monday off, but they're still going to play on Tuesday. Travel in baseball is hard enough. Sunday night games only make it that much harder.
And Sunday night games, obviously, are worse for the visiting team. The home team may also be traveling to start its next series. But there's also a chance they're in the middle of a homestand and not going anywhere after the game other than their own beds. The visiting team, though, they're traveling regardless. Even if they're headed back home, they're still getting on a plane somewhere and landing very early Monday morning.
Don't get me wrong, if the Cubs play the Cardinals in Wrigley on a Sunday night, then the Cubs go to Milwaukee and the Cardinals go home, that isn't exactly back-breaking travel. More often than not, though, you've got teams playing Sunday night games before long travel. The Angels played a Sunday night game against the White Sox in Chicago on May 12, flew home, and lost 11-4 to the Royals the next night.
I understand there's no perfect solution to the Sunday night game problem, but I have some ideas that I think might work to at least make the travel burden a little easier. The most obvious is to give teams that play on Sunday night off on Monday. Since they don't make the post-All-Star break Sunday night schedule until the season has already started, it would be incredibly difficult, if not downright impossible to do that. But in April, May and June, they could easily do it. And if it complicates the logistics to guarantee both teams an off day on Monday, the home team can still play a Monday game if that game is at home, too.
Another plan for the end of the season might work, though. FOX has three or four games every week. These are, obviously, the most marquee matchups of the weekend, and the Sunday night game is most likely going to be picked from one of these same series. They could pick the Sunday night game out of this pool and give all of those teams off on Monday. Or, again, you can still play back-to-back home games on Sunday night and Monday.
Point is baseball travel is hard enough. The schedule-maker doesn't need to make it any harder by making teams fly two time zones in the middle of the night to start another series on Monday after playing on Sunday night. It's great to be on national TV. But not when it puts you at a disadvantage in your following game. That's when Sunday night goes from a privilege to a punishment.
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