Back in my day, we had a three day All-Star break, dammit
Now get onto my lawn and play some dang sports!!!
We are on the fourth day of the All-Star break, and that’s too many. Sure, there was a baseball game on Tuesday (the All-Star Game! The National League won! Camilo Doval got the win!), but it is now Thursday. There were no games yesterday. There are no games today. It is the summer, and the days are long, and these last two days in particular are not filled with baseball. Alas and alack.
I know the argument for having four days off. It’s a long season. The players need a break. The actual All-Stars deserve to have a couple days off too. It’s better to rest and recharge and come out strong in the second half. Don’t we all need a break, really?
And the answer is: no. No! To all of that, no. The players have had a break. Three days is already pretty long, you know. The actual All-Stars only played like 4 innings at the absolute most in an exhibition game sandwiched by off-days. They’re already rested and recharged and as ready to come out strong as possible. And I’ll tell you, I definitely don’t need more of a break. That’s commie talk. My break’s been long enough.
This is the dead time in the sports schedule. There’s no basketball, no World Cup, and even stupid, worthless, overhyped, shitty NFL training camps haven’t started yet. There is literally nothing for sports fans on the schedule other than baseball. Why is there an extra day with an unnecessary lack of baseball? From simply a business perspective, it makes no sense.
Then you look at the rest argument. I understand that baseball can be taxing and players need days off. But they have just had multiple days off! If they’re still not feeling right, that’s not an issue with the number of rest days they’ve gotten; that’s an issue with their bodies. But you know when players don’t have lots of rest days? The rest of the regular season.
For example, the Giants have a make-up game in Detroit on July 24. For the Giants, it’ll be their 11th consecutive day with a game coming off the break, in a stretch that lasts 13 days. For the Tigers, it’ll be their 11th consecutive also, but their streak will last 17 days. That’s a pretty long stretch, especially with the summer weather heating up. If only there were a way to make it a little bit easier. Like, for example, playing that make-up game today, and then getting a full day off a week from Monday, making the travel and rest schedules both much easier.
A universal make-up day just makes way more sense than a universal day off. It’s better to schedule that off day when everyone is tired and needs rest instead of when everyone is rested but would like to be somewhat more rested.
Plus, a 3-day All-Star break used to be standard. Before 2004, that’s how it was every year. Then MLB’s schedule people made it 4 days sometimes, and then they made it 4 days usually, and then they made it 4 days for almost everyone, and this year it seems to universally be 4 days. I tried to find the reasoning behind this, or even some official acknowledgement that it happened, but didn’t come up with much, although I’ll admit I only looked through two pages of Google results, so I might not be clear of the promoted results yet.
I want to watch baseball today and I can’t. I should be able to, but I’m not. I imagine at least a few of you are in the same boat. So here’s to all the games that could have been on today. We’ll see them tomorrow, I suppose. For now, I guess we’ll all have to better ourselves by taking up a hobby or seeing loved ones or some crap. Ugh. I can’t believe MLB is doing this to all of us.