# Why don't baseball teams face every other team during a season? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [July 21, 2009, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693 "2009-07-21T00:01:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/41 "2009-07-23T17:55:39Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > I was limiting my list to popular “American” sports. And cricket fails all three requirements! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/42 "2009-07-23T17:58:05Z")
Go to India and say that. Half a billion people will take your head off with a well-directed bouncer. You threw me off with your inclusion of “soccer,” **Rik**. Not hugely American, surely? Anyway, I’ll stop hijacking now. ---
**Author:** ![scule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@scule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scule)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/43 "2009-07-23T18:53:02Z")
> [@Cliffy](#): > > Horseshit. There’s been a half-dozen posters in this thread that already offered rationales for the difference. The thing about baseball is that, moreso than any other team sport popular in the U.S., is that it’s a game of fine adjustment. That’s related to the pace – you can’t be that precise when you’re running up and down the basketball court non-stop. That’s why the differences in park are important, because you have to work your strategy based on the field as well as your opponent. The same thing with the schedule – the more you play a team, and especially the more you play a particular guy – the more you understand his strengths and weaknesses. The more you understand what he throws, when – or what he likes at the plate and what he’ll chase. So you play your division a lot, the rest of your league somewhat less, and the other league just a little. That means that over the course of the season, luck should be less and less a factor, esp. against those teams with whom you compete most directly. Baseball may be a game about suspense rather than action (generally-speaking), but I disagree that it’s a game about fine adjustment any more so than any other team sport. Regardless of regulations on the size and shape of a playing field, all stadiums and locations are different across all the sports. Teams play differently because in some arenas the ice is faster, while in others the boards give up funny bounces of the puck, while in some stadiums the wind will knock your kick-off down and throw your passes wide, or there might be a crowned field that leads to balls rolling off for throw-ins more than in other places. There’s a tremendous amount of nuance to the playing surface and location for all sports. This is not something unique at all to baseball. Further, I disagree that you cannot be as precise running down a basketball court as you can on a baseball diamond. Sure, a pitcher is looking at putting a ball in a specific location, but he’s got all the time in the world to aim and throw, while a basketball player, or a hockey player or football player, has to hit a small mark while in motion and anticipating the movements of up to 21 other people. No one sport of those mentioned can claim to be more precise or fine in its adjustments. And even further, there is just as much need to fine-tune a strategy in hockey or football or basketball or soccer to account for who your opponent is, what sort of strategy he or they will play, what the conditions are, what your own strengths are, etc. Coaches spend countless hours going over video of other teams, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses and deciding how they are going to play that opponent based on a number of different factors. Baseball is not more fine-tuned than the others. I will agree, though, that over the course of a season in baseball luck should be less of a factor simply because the length of the season - it shoud even out the luck for all sides. > [@](#): > > Whenever anyone curious about the sport asks questions like this, somebody has to come in and superciliously declaim about how baseball fans are so hidebound and there’s no reason why they like the things they like. I find it tiresome. Go ahead and dislike the sport if you wish. But don’t pretend you’re dropping some secret knowledge when all you’re saying is that it isn’t the sport you prefer. I actually said: > [@](#): > > I have a very, very, very hard time watching baseball **not because I don’t find it interesting (I do, and HD baseball is beautiful to watch)** but because I just can’t bring myself to give a shit if the Jays win or lose the particular game that is on tv because there’s 161 other ones thrown in the mix. Bloding mine. I love baseball. It’s the first sport I learned to play (and I’m Canadian). I could out-hit and out-throw everyone my age when I was growing up, but we couldn’t afford to play in a league so I never got to develop it. My point being I love the sport. I do find, however, that the season is far too long to be motivated to care and the traditions that have led to there being two different leagues with different rules and parks with such radically different shapes makes it a bit hard to understand. There’s no rational reason for there to be these rule differences or parks shape differences other than “that’s just the way we’ve always done it”. That’s fine, and baseball fans can hang on to those traditions forever. But it’s not rational (though certainly not an objectively bad thing). ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/44 "2009-07-24T00:43:59Z")
> [@scule](#): > > Coaches spend countless hours going over video of other teams, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses and deciding how they are going to play that opponent based on a number of different factors. Baseball is not more fine-tuned than the others. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that baseball managers spend the least amount of time in sports on strategizing and preparing for their next opponent. Sure there’s strategy in baseball, but what are we really talking about? The manager sits down and strategizes for how long for each game, an hour? If baseball games were once a week, I doubt that managers would spend every waking moment of their 20 hour days preparing for the next opponent. NFL coaches would do this every day for as many weeks as you give them between games. They have an endless sea of details to analyze and strategize. The different venues (weather) are the least of their worries. ---
**Author:** ![Hirka\_T\_Bawa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/db5fbb/32.png) [@Hirka\_T\_Bawa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hirka_T_Bawa)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/45 "2009-07-24T04:46:20Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > I wouldn’t be surprised to find that baseball managers spend the least amount of time in sports on strategizing and preparing for their next opponent. Sure there’s strategy in baseball, but what are we really talking about? The manager sits down and strategizes for how long for each game, an hour?. True, managers don’t spend that long to prepare for a particular game, but that is because they have a large group of people who do it for them… Hence the term Manager. In baseball, the teams send advance scouts to watch the team they will be facing in the future, they make reports, and send it to the players and managers who then use that information. Also, the manager strategizes mainly for a team, not necessarily for one game. A normal series is about 3 games, and strategies made will normally work for all three games. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693/46 "2009-07-24T07:50:06Z")
> [@Hirka\_T\_Bawa](#): > > True, managers don’t spend that long to prepare for a particular game, but that is because they have a large group of people who do it for them… All sports have that. It seems that of all the sports, the cushiest top job with the most free time and the least amount of prep work is baseball manager. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-baseball-teams-face-every-other-team-during-a-season/503693.md?page=2)