Compressing the baseball season

The Game Room
1

I was watching the “Scott Van Pelt” radio show simulcast, and they were talking about baseball being swallowed up by football. I wonder how much sooner the season would end with the following changes:

1.Start season on the 1st Monday in April.
2.No non-travel off days (off day if night “get away day” is followed by day game)
3.Each series must last 3 calendar days, each roadtrip/homestand must last 6 days
4.Sunday Doubleheaders
5.All-Star break cut to 2 days, no off days before or after (If HR derby, held day b4 ASG is a Thursday (ASG on Friday), play on Wednesday and Saturday)

And when would the playoffs end if rule #2 is used, and next round begins 48 hours after match-up set.

2

Why does the season need to end sooner?

Baseball teams take very few off days as it is, I believe 15 days or so during the entire regular season.

3

Yeah, start football later. :cool:

4

Yeah I think the season is way too long but you’re essentially telling these guys to work 5 months straight without any time off. That’s a tall order.

5

Early games are screwed by northern team weather. If you put a northern team, without a dome , on the road to start off the season they could fall way back before opening day.

6

Because, in my and in SVP and Ryan’s opinions, people ignore baseball once the football (NFL and college) season begins. If you could end the season earlier in September, people wouldn’t be as caught up in football yet.

7

Poor babies! They make MILLIONS and can’t be expected TO PLAY A GAME everyday for only half a year? :rolleyes:

8

It’s not as simple as saying “they play a game.” A lot of these guys play with injuries for months because their teams need them. They play 6 or 7 days a week. They show up early, work out, run, take batting practice, then play. It’s not like they are sipping mimosas by the pool, then throw on a bathrobe, head to the stadium, play for 3 hours then hit the clubs.

They’re also away from their families for weeks at a time. They are very well compensated for it, obviously, but it’s also not as easy as you make it sound.

9

Hopefully, they’ll extend the football season to 162 games. Sixteen games is just too few to decide a season. Imagine the Bears and Packers playing 19 times a year.

10

I just had a look at the Yankees schedule for this year. Not counting the All-Star break, they had 16 days without a game during the regular season. However, nearly all of those were probably travel days, at the beginning or end of a home stand or between cities on a road trip. Only three were off days during a home stand; one was an off day during a road series.

Y’know, etv78, it’s really hard to take you seriously when you make comments like this. Do you have any idea how wearing it is to do almost anything for six months straight without a break? As has been pointed out, besides the actual time spent playing games time they have batting practice or bullpen sessions, conditioning work, therapy for injuries, and other activities that take up much of the day. On their “off” days they are almost always traveling. Even on a charter jet a cross-country flight is not exactly restful. And they spend half their time away from home, which has its own stresses.

11

Colibri, if you don’t want to take me serious, I understand. Just don’t ask me to have sympathy for them.

12

Who asked you to have sympathy for them? We’ve been explaining to you why exactly your suggestions are impractical. Baseball players are expected to maintain an extremely high level of athletic performance over a period of six months. Nearly all of their time as it is occupied in games, practice, and travel. Further reducing their very limited time off is likely to cause deterioration in their performance.

You’re hard to take seriously because you often respond to the points presented by other posters not with counter arguments (or better, an admission that your proposal was not fully thought out), but by complete non sequiturs.

13

Are you talking about starting catchers? Yes, I agree catchers work their asses off. You aren’t talking about other positions when they are at bat sit on a cushioned bench and wait their turn 99% of the time or when they stand in one place at their position are you?

Half their time away from home is spent in first class hotels (rooms to themselves) meal money and women throwing themselves at them.

Now NBA, NFL, NHL, and pro tennis players (and even pro golfers) work harder than baseball players
Catchers work hard, the rest stand around spitting. Oh wait, I forgot pitchers who pitch every 5th day for six innings.

14

It’s pretty hard to catch ground balls or flies if you stand in one position. And if you get on base, you have to exert yourself. The action may not be continuous, but it’s intense when it happens.

And of course you are just looking what happens during games. As has been pointed out, players are not idle when they are not in a game.

Of course all pitchers go through practice sessions on most days when they are not pitching.

15

This is simply ridiculous.

Yes, these guys get paid a lot of money. And no, i’m not feeling sorry for them. But, as others have pointed out, the fact is that they do considerably more than just walk out onto the field and play a three-hour game of baseball. Sure, they stay in nice hotels and get pampered, but the simple fact of playing baseball almost every day for six months straight is very hard on even the fittest bodies.

Over the past few years, there have been stretches where i have played three or four games of softball a week. Softball is not as tough as baseball, the games don’t take as long, and i only play in fairly casual, friendly leagues. But, in the weeks when i play four games, i often wake up nursing sore elbows or shoulders or knees or back muscles, to say nothing of the scrapes and bruises from diving and sliding.

Now, i’m older than just about every Major League player (Jamie Moyer still has a few years on me), and i’m sure i’m not as fit as them, but the fact is that baseball is much harder on the body than most people realize, especially when played with the regularity that MLB teams play.

Now, you might argue that a few scrapes and bruises and some muscle soreness might be a small price to pay for the money these guys make. That’s probably true. But if you make them play even more regularly, it’s probably also going to make the whole thing less enjoyable for the fans. Because less rest will mean more nagging injuries, and a greater chance of big injuries, which means that the good players will be on the DL more and on the field less, reducing the quality of the spectacle.

As for football, fuck football. Don’t get me wrong, i love the NFL, and i watch it every week. But it doesn’t stop me from watching baseball, and i think altering the baseball season in reaction to the football season is a stupid idea.

16

NFL players play only one-tenth the number of games as baseball players, and play once a week over a shorter season. Many are not on the field for most of the game. NBA and NHL players exert themselves more continuously during games, but play only half the number of games as baseball players. They have many more non-game days during the season than baseball players.

17

but they practice often and the practices are intense. baseball has some hitting on their off days. and spitting practice of course.

I love baseball and I know they work hard on their skills but it just doesn’t seem as strenuous as those other mentioned.

18

I submit that if you think this is all that baseball players do outside of the game, you probably should retire from this debate.

19

Just don’t play baseball games on the weekends during the football season. Why compete with football, play baseball games Tuesday thru Friday with day games on Monday. It would make the playoff teams actually have to start the fourth pitcher. It would lock in viewers through the entire series.

20

Baseball’s appeal is still mostly regional with the exception of a few teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Cubs. By September a lot of teams are completely out of the pennant race and with the expanded rosters, they’re playing a lot of minor league prospects.

I do think MLB needs to try to wrap up the playoffs a bit earlier. Pushing the World Series into very late October is going to blow up one year if Colorado or Minnesota gets in and they get hit with a late October snowstorm.