erik lundegaard

Sunday October 25, 2009

Scioscia on October Days Off: "Ridiculous"

My man Tyler Kepner! Here's an excerpt from his column in today's New York Times about all those freakin' days off in October:

Partly because they each swept their division series, the Yankees and the Angels have played just eight games in 20 days since the end of the regular season. In a session with Los Angeles-area writers on Saturday, Angels Manager Mike Scioscia made his feelings clear.

“Ridiculous,” Scioscia said. “I don’t know. Can I say it any clearer than that? We should have never had a day off last Wednesday. We should never have three days off after the season. You shouldn’t even have two days off after the season.

“It just takes an advantage away for a deep team, which everybody feels very strongly is an asset. It takes that advantage away and I think that’s something that Major League Baseball hopefully will consider looking at.”

Mark Teixeira has played so little he says he has newfound respect for utility players. And why so many days off?

The reason for the elongated schedule is the recent change in the start of the World Series. From 1985 through 2006, the World Series was scheduled to start on a Saturday. Then baseball and the networks concluded that Saturday was a dead night for ratings. They built a few extra days into the schedule, which pushed Game 1 to a Wednesday.

I wrote about this back then. I've been bitching about it all month. Here and here and here, too. It's time for Major League Baseball to get smart. It's time to stop being ridiculous. Bud Selig and the networks are ruining the most important baseball games of the year, and for what? It's not even helping ratings. They're ruining baseball for nothing. Does Bud want that to be his legacy?

Baseball is supposed to be played every day in fair weather. Its most important games are now played every other day in horrendous weather. And that's not baseball.

Posted at 09:49 AM on Sunday October 25, 2009 in category Baseball  
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