Freezeball

I have a question.  Has the baseball season always been 162 games?  If not, when did they start that?  If it isn't a sacred tradition, I'd like to make a suggestion.  How about cutting the season down to 150 games? 

The reason I'm asking is I just happened to come across the 2nd game of the World Series as I'm flipping through the channels.  I really don't think you should be able to see your breath when you are pitching.  During the crowd shots, some of the people look miserable sitting in the stands freezing their butts off.

Isn't baseball a summer game?  Then why do we wait until it is 30 degrees in Detroit to play for the championship?

It makes sense to me to wrap up this whole thing by the first weekend in October.  But I'm guessing the people behind hot dog and beer sales would beg to differ.  So the players will just have to live with the sting of line drives and pray they don't slip on the ice on their way to home plate.

Comments

[Karen]

I went to a game in March or April once, and it was MISERABLE! It was around 30 degrees and they were walking around selling hot chocolate & coffee instead of beer & pop.

[Rick Pekan]

My wife was reading your blog and I felt compelled to answer your question. (tammy, you must of known it'd be me that could answer this sports question)

Baseball has had 162 game schedule since 1961. Before that it was 154 game schedule since the early 1900's. In it's early days the schedule began in late april and ran to late september, with the World Series beginning the last days of september first days of october and ending by early to mid october. The shorter season is explained by the fact that baseball used to schedule many doubleheaders before the 70's (Ernie Banks "let's play 2!") This helped the season ended early than it does today.

Factors that have pushed the world series into the later colder months are the elimination of the double headers (now it takes more days to get the games in) as well as the addition of the Wild card games and league championships (There was ONLY a world series till 1969, and no wild cards until 1995). With baseball's typical tradtions, it's hard to see them eliminating games or moving it earlier.

There ya go Tammy. It is cold out, but those who payed 200 dollars for tickets can probaly deal with it. The players who get paid more can deal as well. I'm enjoying Game 3 from my warm seat as my wife looks on in humiliation at my nerdiness.

[Tammy Melchien]

Thanks for the info, Rick. I say bring back the doubleheader!