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The Hot Corner: Baseball + Frostbite = Fun For All

The Hot Corner

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By Eric Horchy | The Suncoast News

Published: October 19, 2009

Baseball tends to be one of those sports whose true appeal and grandeur will always be cemented in devotee's memories by visions and emotions of the past.

Much of that can come from personal experiences dating back to the days when one first fell for the game. Memories like these:

Who doesn't think back to the frost-hardened infield dirt, the ball caps with modified earflap warmers, the innings-long, lingering sting of the hands after getting jammed at the plate or all those cold-induced runny noses with an icy fondness belonging only to that of our national pastime?

Baseball in its purist form, my friends.

Of course, that (along with the headline) is written with tongue firmly in frigid cheek. The loyal who sat through Saturday night's five-plus hour marathon at the frozen tundra of Yankee Stadium certainly understand.

This year's World Series will be held later than it ever has been and is guaranteed to run into November. If the Fall Classic goes the distance, that game will be played on Nov. 5.

Remember the old, early-90's MLB ad campaign slogan, "Catch the Fever?" Yeah, a whole new meaning now.

Say what you will, but the game is just not meant to be played when rain-out threats morph into white-out possibilities.

There is absolutely nothing good that comes out of games being played that late in the year. Baseball is a "feel" game – that "feel" of the bat in your hands, the ball's seams on your fingertips and impact into your glove. If you're at, say, Fenway Park and your own anatomical mitts feel more like two frozen haddock filets, that "feel" can quickly turn more into simple vagaries:

"Yes, I feel there is definitely a wooden bat in my hands," and, "Yes, this is a baseball in my possession."

Growing up playing ball in Western Pennsylvania, enduring miserable, cold-weather games early in the season was a yearly norm. That's why we went to Cocoa Beach every spring training; to get away from all that northern exposure and actually play the game as it was meant to be played.

Getting back to Major League Baseball and its postseason finale problems, the question that remains is this: What can be done?

A likely kneejerk reaction would be to shorten the 162-game season, traditional since 1961 (American League) and 1962 (National League). Lopping 20, 30, heck even 40 ballgames off that lengthy schedule could eliminate cold-weather related problems in the playoffs and early season.

I used the term "traditional" in that last paragraph, and that's the roadblock that will jam any likeminded solution – tradition. Alterations to schedule length messes with individual and team statistics and production totals and their subsequent ability to be compared with those that came before.

Since 1962, when both leagues went to 162 games, 46 seasons were played and 46 World Series champions were crowned without ever eclipsing Halloween. (For simple-math whizzes out there questioning the number 46, don't forget about the number 1994.)

Similar to a mayor looking over a city's financial plan during budget season, every day on the schedule, like every line item, can be eyed up for adjustments.

For example, there were four days of no American League baseball before Game 1 of the ALCS. Two of those days, Oct. 13 and 14, were without any games at all. Additionally, those days were Tuesday and Wednesday – prime weekdays where there would be virtually no competition with football or other sporting events…I'm just saying.

If shaving down the amount of games is not an option, the biggest chunk of saved days could come throughout the duration of the season with a reestablishment of a faded tradition that is just made for baseball.

Doubleheaders.

Now relegated to the status of unnecessary unless cancelled games need rescheduled, double-dips could be the answer. I'm sure Ernie Banks is onboard.

Don't worry greedy, err, thrifty owners. We don't even have to be talking twi-night, two-for-one tickets. You can do day-nighters if you want. Same difference.

Plus, having more early games means a higher opportunity for kids to land on one when flipping through television stations. How about that for a doubleheader? Two problems – late-running seasons and dwindling fan bases – being tackled at once. It's multitasking at its best.

Or, as a league, keep acting like there's nothing that can be done and the length of the season is in a state of irreversible expansion. Maybe soon we can be treated to Thanksgiving Day football and baseball in Detroit: The Lions jaunting about in cozy Ford Field and the Tigers skating around the bases in frozen Comerica Park.

So while no possible changes will come fast enough to fix this year's postseason mess, here's to a New York-Philadelphia World Series where game-time high temperatures of 40 degrees will be prayed for by all in attendance. Good luck Yankees and Phillies fans, you deserve that.

(Dirty and underhanded. Yeah, I know.)

Eric Horchy can be reached at 727-815-1071 or ehorchy@suncoastnews.com.

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