Baseball's schedule outrageous, cheats fans
Posted: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 3:03 PM
Last Friday, Detroit and the Yankees played a game that started at 11 p.m. In New York, the outcry, especially with the Yankees losing the game, was extraordinary.
MLB was right in ordering games be played whenever possible. Doubleheaders are gone, victims of the greed that comes with financial success. No team willingly surrenders a gate, off days are prehistoric notions, and split doubleheaders are the single worst scheduling notion in the history of Western Civilization.
What intrigued me was the reporting of the Yankees clubhouse before Saturday night’s game: empty save for a hardy few and very quiet.
My point: the post-BALCO crusade included an amphetamine ban. Quietly, many baseball uniformed people are dumbfounded.
Baseball’s schedule is absurd (not the matchups or dates but the scheduling of games) and no one cares. Teams are asked to play at ridiculous times (Sunday night) followed by long trips often without an off day and expected to play again. I think too many scenarios unfold where teams “sleepwalk” through games. And it’s not the fault of the players, but of the schedule.
Of course, no one cares. With what the players are paid, goes the thinking; they should play whenever and wherever told.
Well, this is not to advocate amphetamine use, but simply to address the real world: That’s how the players got through the schedule until last season. Just as truck drivers, pilots and, believe it or not, the military sharpen awareness and focus in crucial times, baseballers survived the relentless and now, insane scheduling of games with some help.
But the steroid wave swept up amphetamines as well and I know uniformed people who privately ask how the games can be played in this schedule without cheating the fans. The stark answer is that they can’t.
In 1997, the Giants were scheduled to play a night game in Atlanta and the next afternoon in Chicago. Understandably, the Giants went to both teams seeking some relief in game times. Both teams refused.
The Giants went so far as to ask the Braves to advance the night game start from 7:40 to 7:10, a simple 30 minutes that wouldn’t inconvenience fans but could slightly help their quick turnaround. Again, the answer was no.
Neither Atlanta nor Chicago cared about the Giants plight. But, my point is that the Chicago fans were cheated. Because the Giants played the night game in Atlanta, arrived in their Chicago hotel at 3 a.m. and had a 1:20 p.m. first pitch at Wrigley. There was no way the Giants could put forth a representative effort, and despite winning the night game in Atlanta, they lost 7-3 in Chicago.
Again, no one with authority cared enough to fix an obvious schedule flaw. So, I think MLB was right last Friday in Detroit, but I understand the frustration of players and managers with the callousness now rampant in sports’ most demanding schedule.
