Sports

madinmaryland

(64,933 posts) Tue Apr 5, 2016, 06:25 PM Apr 2016

Should the MLB schedule early-season games to avoid wintry weather?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/04/05/should-the-mlb-schedule-early

The Baltimore Orioles are playing their first two series of the 2016 season at home in some of the coldest April weather in years. The Nationals will return to the capital Thursday, only to be met with a potential rain delay, rapidly plummeting temperatures and a chance of weekend snow. In New York and Cleveland, opening-day games were called because of horrible baseball weather.

Why is Major League Baseball torturing itself and its fans by scheduling these early-season games in cities that are, more often than not, on the wintry end of the spectrum in early April?

My cynical self says the answer is obviously money. The schedule maximizes the potential profit of the season. But even if it’s a little bit about the fans, CBS Sports writer Matt Snyder thinks that it’s a (somewhat) easy problem to solve, and he makes a good argument for change:

Doesn’t MLB have the ability to buy an extra week before playing in its northern-most venues without roofs?

The Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Minnesota Twins, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs and Colorado Rockies seem like the best bets to have terrible weather in the first week of April.

That’s only 11 of the 30 MLB teams. We could throw in the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals and we still have fewer than half of the teams here that could spend the entire first week on the road. It can work.

Hmm. Maybe I should get some popcorn out!

BTW, The fucking Rockies shouldn't have a home game until the first of May!!