If you've watched Baseball Tonight or read anything on ESPN.com by one of their baseball writers recently, you've seen ESPN's new obsession. Based on some comments Rob Manfred has made, they think the "solution" to baseball's non-existent problems is to reduce the schedule to 154 games. This, of course, will never happen. But that hasn't stopped ESPN from becoming obsessed with it.
ESPN has been so infatuated with the topic you'd think it's LeBron James or Johnny Manziel. The fact that it's just an opinion, not a fact backed up by credible information from a legitimate source, doesn't seem to be relevant either. The commissioner said something that they were able to twist into the story they want to tell. That's good enough. Who wants the truth to get in the way of a good story anyway?
The arguments used in support of the 154-game schedule are soft at best. One of the biggest concerns is about travel. In theory, taking eight games off the schedule while keeping the length of the season at 26 weeks, you're giving each team eight extra off days. Yes, it's difficult for these players to finish a game, travel, get there at 3:00 in the morning and play again that night. But they do that at all levels of baseball, and in the Minor Leagues they're not flying in private charters. I'm not saying an extra off day here or there wouldn't be nice, but baseball's also a game that you're used to playing everyday and not doing so would knock you out of your routine.
Besides, there are plenty of ways to deal with the travel. A lot of teams already play day games on the last day of a homestand before going on a road trip. Baseball can't require that, but giving teams Monday off (or having their Monday game in the same city) after the Sunday night game IS something they could do. They could also set up road trips so that there's no time-zone jumping. An off day is already required when going from the West Coast to the East Coast, but there's nothing that says you can't go from St. Louis (Central time zone) to Cincinnati (Eastern time zone) to Milwaukee (Central time zone).
They've also used injury concerns as one of their reasons for wanting a shorter schedule. I'm not sure how a shorter schedule would actually reduce the number of injuries. How many guys are actually getting hurt because they're fatigued? Yes, it would be fewer games that relief pitchers have to throw, reducing the number of innings on their arms. But bullpen management is, and should be, the manager's job. The abundance of Tommy John surgeries is alarming, but I'm not sure there's anything that can be done differently at the Major League level.
And the concern about injury for position players is just as silly. The days of players playing all 162 games are long since gone. The travel is one of the reasons why. We see guys sitting out the game before or after a travel game already. Or they'll only play one of the two when there's a day game after a night game. That way they don't have to do that to their bodies. Or is that the problem? Do they want to see the stars playing all the time no matter what?
But my biggest issue here is this. Other than ESPN, is anyone actually clamoring for a shorter schedule? No one remembers when baseball only played a 154-game schedule, these writers and broadcasters included. The AL went to 162 games in 1961 and the NL followed suit a year later. That's 55 years ago. It's like the people who long for the days before the designated hitter, which has been in place since 1973. So, if you're keeping track, baseball has had both a 162-game schedule and the DH for the last 42 years. (Interleague play isn't going anywhere either, by the way.)
This is all a moot point anyway. Because the owners will never reduce the size of the schedule. Going from 162 games to 154 would mean each team loses four home games. While that's not a big deal for teams like Tampa Bay, think about how much lost revenue that would be for the Yankees or the Cardinals or the Red Sox. Unless these talking heads can think of a way for these big-market owners to make the same amount of money in 77 games that they would've in 81.
We rarely see doubleheaders anymore for the same reason. If you can get attendance, concessions, parking, etc., 81 times a season, why wouldn't you? Sometimes doubleheaders are the only choice to make up rainouts, but even when teams have them, it's usually as a last resort. And the doubleheaders we do see are usually of the day/night split-admission variety.
It's nice to think back to the '40s and '50s when teams played their 154-game schedules with a Sunday doubleheader. But baseball only had eight teams that traveled by train and played almost exclusively afternoon games back then. Baseball's different now. And the game that it's become is pretty great. There's nothing "wrong" with it. It doesn't need "fixing."
Chopping eight games off the schedule certainly isn't the answer. So, ESPN, please, for the love of God, just drop it!
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