OnlyBucs

Does anyone else find it strange that MLB doesn't use the weather to their advantage in April?



Meaning, let the southern, warmer cities have more home games than the northern, colder cities.



I know every team wants their Home Opener soon, but the other series should be played down south in my opinion.



The Pirates play in Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago and New York in the month of April. They play in Miami the last weekend of April (also have St Louis in there).



Come May, they are in LA, Arizona, Milwaukee (dome) and Atlanta. It just seems strange to me. The schedule could be done so much better to have the fans in a better climate.

Went back to the 1958 season, my first year going to games, and see that they opened on 4/15 @ the Braves in Milwaukee and ended the season on 9/28 at home vs the Phillies.



But due the greed of MLB, tv networks, and such MLB has expanded from 8 teams in each league in 1958 to 16 in each league now. And the schedule included only 154 games.



Also in 1958 the Bucs played 19, yes, 19 double headers of which 8 were on the road. That is 2 games in the same day for you youngsters. Yep, a fan got into the ball park for two games that day for the price of only one game. That is like the team giving away free tix for 11 games.



Starting the season a couple weeks later would keep fans out of a good bit of cold weather and help the players as well.



So why not go back to 154 games, or have a half dozen or so double headers for each team to host and something else lost on us now a days is that many early season games in 1958 were played during the day and not the colder evenings.



Back to your original thought Dog, I agree something should be done to make it easier on fans to enjoy seeing their home team as much as you and I do. But MLB and the MLBPA don't give a crap about us. In the words of former Bucco 3B-LF Frank Thomas: "When I played the rich came to see poor guy like me play, now adays its the poor guy who comes to see the rich guys play". He made that statement at a Pirate Fest I attended about 17 yrs ago during question and answer session.

Wouldn't that setup also give the northern teams more games at home to end the season when the races might be tight? Aside from that one argument, I agree with the idea. My ideal is to open the season at LA, so you get both warm weather and a west coast trip out of the way while you're still fresh.

I do agree more double headers are needed. That would make the world series a little warmer and not into November. I don't see them going back to 154 games. It would mess with the stats and records too much.



The northern teams wouldn't have to get all the home games at the end of the season. There is plenty of time to even that out after April.



It would give the southern teams more home games in April and the northern teams more home games in May or June. Really just swapping months.

Even doubleheaders now aren't really doubleheaders. They've gone to those day/night things where I guess people have to get separate tickets to get in to game two?