checking the opening day cities I see that some opening day baseball games are at the following cities:
Cincinatti
Boston
Chicago
Philadelphia
Baltimore
San Francisco
St Louis
These are cold weather cities with no indoor ballparks while these cities teams are playing away games who play in warm weather cities.
Devil Rays
Dodgers
Braves
Mariners (Retractable roof)
Anyone know why MLB wants to play opening games in these cities when there is good probability of inclement and/or frigid weather. Particularly cities like Chicago and Boston whose games were postponed today. It is in the high 30’s in St Louis right and they started the game an hour ago.
And FTR…I do know it is a tradition in baseball to play opening day in Cincinatti.
I think it’s safe to say that they don’t want to do it, but their greed requires it. If they want to play 162 games and still be able to draw out the postseason they need to start early. If they want to avoid double headers they need to start early.
I’m not sure how much effort the MLB puts into getting games in the first half of April played in warmer weather cities but the computers might not allow them to have the Dodgers, Braves. Rays and Mariners at home now without screwing up the matchups in the middle of the season or giving cold weather teams absurdly long home stands in July.
You also have to understand that in cities like NYC, Chicago and LA; probably Baltimore/Washington, Oakland/SF and maybe Houston/Texas (Dallas) have 2 teams sharing a market and are essentially required to start one of those teams on opening day at home. In Chicago either the Cubs or Sox are always going to open at home while the other is on the road. It’s very rare that the two teams are both at home or both on the road and this is intentional in order to maximize TV revenues and media focus. Starting both on the road would almost certainly mean they’d have to compromise that goal in the summer.
There are probably just too many complications when you are putting together such a complex schedule with so many games, venues and considerations.
Personally I think they should shorten the season, play more double headers and start on April 15th but that’ll never happen.