From USA Today, here’s Bob Nightengale’s latest column on the possibility — and the logic — of baseball reverting to a shorter regular season schedule:
CINCINNATI — It could be baseball’s most drastic scheduling change in more than half a century.
It likely would assure that no one will ever break Barry Bonds’ single-season home run record of 73 homers.
The record 262 hits by Ichiro Suzuki in 2004 likely would stand, and it may be another century before another team wins 116 games.
For the first time since 1960, Major League Baseball could be going old-school on us, reverting back to a 154-game schedule from the current 162-game schedule.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and Tony Clark, director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, each said Tuesday that the topic will be heavily discussed in their negotiations for their next collective bargaining agreement, which expires in December 2016.
“In looking back from the time I played to now that I’m watching what these guys are doing,” Clark said, “I don’t know how they do it. What these guys are being asked to do with respect to games’ start times, with respect to the travel distances themselves, with respect to performing at an elite level with three days off a month, is a challenge.
“I think that’s why as we continue to move forward here, and guys continue to be asked to do more and more, it’s something that we have to look at significantly.
“We’re at a point in time, where perhaps there are any number of things that guys are being asked to do, that’s directly affecting the way they play. And that’s not beneficial for anybody.”
The schedule has never been more demanding on players. Teams are playing more night games than at any time in history. Teams, even on getaway days, usually don’t get to their hotel until 2 or 3 in the morning, and after a few hours of sleep, are back on the field.
And you wonder at times why these players look like they’re sleep-walking, particularly playing day games after night games, with lethargic performances.
It was different back in the day, when amphetamines were ballplayers’ best friend.
It didn’t matter how tired you were, or how many adult beverages you had the night before, greenies could get you through that day.
It all stopped before the 2006 season when Major League Baseball banned amphetamines.
Just like that, we’ve had a drastic decline of offense. Hardly anyone can hit .300, let alone pop 50 homers. And guys can’t even stay on the field, with only 35 players playing in 155 or more games last year, the lowest total since 1977.
It’s not the steroids that brought baseball’s offense to a grinding halt. It’s the greenies.
Now, besides the rash of players trying to get legalized exemptions to use Adderall, the time has come for baseball to react.
That means shortening the schedule, providing at least eight more off days per season, and perhaps forcing teams to play day games, or at least twilight games, when a team is traveling after the game.
It has become so ridiculous that last weekend the San Francisco Giants played an ESPN Sunday Night game in Washington, D.C., and were scheduled to play the next day in San Francisco. The Giants, on the advice of a sleep expert, returned to the hotel after game, flew the next day to San Francisco and proceeded straight to the ballpark without even dropping their suitcases back home.
The result?
You guessed it, the Giants were shut out by the New York Mets, 3-0, producing just three hits.
The New York Yankees tried the same thing on May 4 with an ESPN Sunday Night Game in Boston. They spent the night in Boston, traveled the next day to Toronto, headed straight to the ballpark, and also got just three hits in a 3-1 loss.
“It’s like pick your poison,” Giants catcher Buster Posey said. “When you get to your house at 6 in the morning, and play a game that night, it takes a toll on your body not for just that day, but a couple of days.
“I don’t know what the answer is necessarily, but I think just from a performance, health, and safety standpoint, it’s going to have to be brought to the forefront.”
The problem, of course, is that a reduction of eight games means eight fewer paid admission dates, eight less TV broadcasts, and perhaps a 5 percent loss of revenue to clubs.
“We sell out in a lot of markets in terms of gates,” Manfred said, “we have television commitments, and there are game guarantees that could be affected by a shortened season.
“So it’s a huge economic issue.”
And, perhaps it’s an obstacle impossible to overcome.
“I think people’s pockets are happy keeping it the way it is,” Baltimore Orioles center fielder Adam Jones says. “Everybody’s making money. That’s all right.
“They always say when I got called up to the big leagues, 162 is telling the truth. They never say 154.”
Yeah, but it always used to be 154 games, back in the days of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Ted Williams.
“Yeah,” Jones said, “but I wasn’t even born yet. (Ronald) Reagan used to be the president, too, but I wasn’t born yet. What they need to do is stop the other sports from having such a long-ass playoff series.”
It’s certainly possible that Major League Baseball could recover their loss of income by expanding the postseason, themselves, which Manfred acknowledged is a possibility, but prefers to keep the current format intact.
“When you’re giving up revenue,” Manfred said, “you got to figure out something that is offsetting in the other direction. The one obvious possibility is that you make a change in terms of playoff format.”
Certainly, the players and union can argue, a shortened regular-season schedule could actually enhance club’s revenue. The less games they play, the fewer injuries. The less games, the fewer times a marquee player would have to sit out of the starting lineup.
“Ultimately, people want to see the best players play,” said Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun. “If I’m going to see the Los Angeles Angels, I want to see Albert Pujols and Mike Trout in the lineup. If you play 154 games, it increases the likelihood they’re in there every day instead of taking the occasional day off.
“It’s like if you got watch the Los Angeles Lakers, you want to see Kobe Bryant. If you want to watch the Cleveland Cavaliers, you want to see LeBron James. But our 162-game schedule is such a grind, it makes it so hard to do that, and it increases the likelihood of injuries.
“There were less than 10 percent of guys who played 150 games or more last year, so if you’re one of those fans that only gets to go to a couple of games, you could miss seeing your favorite player. It would be ultimately beneficial in everybody’s best interest.”
Even Texas Rangers All-Star first baseman Prince Fielder, baseball’s ironman, who once played all 162 games in three consecutive seasons and four of five, says he’d love to have a few more breathers.
“Let’s put it this way,” Fielder said, “I sure wouldn’t be upset about it. It’s such a long season, man, and the longer you play, the more you realize it’s tough.
“Those day games, they’re tough. I’m 31 now. I’m not young anymore.”
There are 39 players in this year’s All-Star Game 27 years or younger, but remarkably, not a single All-Star has played in every game this year.
“You hate to change how the game has been,” Giants and NL All-Star manager Bruce Bochy said, “but I would be good with 154 games. I would really be for it. It would be easier for the players. It think it would be easier to get the regular players out there more. And you would cut back on injuries.
“You think about it, it makes a lot of sense.
“I really think it would work.”
It’s now time to make it work.
Associated Press photos
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