The Coronavirus is wreaking havoc
on amateur and professional sports worldwide.
The NBA has just suspended its season; the NHL may follow suit; and,
with Opening Day a mere two weeks away, baseball will have to start making
decisions soon. It may be time to see if
things old can be made new again.
That would include pushing back the
start of the season to the second week of April. I’d also recommend a shortened season of, say,
154 games (sound familiar?) with doubleheaders.
Consider these dates and numbers.
The 1960 baseball season started
on April 12th. When both
leagues went to a 162-game season two years later, Opening Day fell on April 9th. How interesting that as late as 1990 the
season opened on, yes, April 9th.
March madness, if you will, didn’t happen until 1996. Then, it was March 31st (White Sox
at Mariners in the godawful Kingdome), and now it’s supposed to be March 26th.
Also consider that in 1959 the
White Sox played 21 doubleheaders; twenty years later, the Sox were down to ten
twin-bills. By 1989, they were playing
but three. If disease dictates the
season start later, doubleheaders could get the season to close to 154 games,
if not 162. All it will take is the
players and ownership together hammering out a revised schedule.
And, along those lines, might I
suggest a one-time only change, with MLB rosters expanding to thirty players,
the better to handle, say, a season with fifteen or so doubleheaders? Sounds sensible to me.
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