Bill Veeck, the showman owner of the White Sox, brought circus elephants to Comiskey Park to entertain fans between games of a doubleheader against the Yankees on June 28, 1959. Associated Press
This blog contains two parts--a rant about the lack of doubleheaders in Major League Baseball and the decision Saturday night in the Manny Pacquiao-Jeff Horn WBO Super Welterweight title fight.Both rankled me, but for different reasons.
July 4th approaches. Memorial Day is a distant memory. Mother's and Father's Day are long gone. Labor Day looms in the future. And today is a Sunday.
What is the significance of all of these dates and Sundays? In my childhood, MLB used to routinely hold single admission doubleheaders on Sundays and holidays. Twi-night doubleheaders were reserved for make up games added onto an existing night contest involving the same team. Separate admission doubleheaders were only reserved for the Boston Red Sox when Fenway Park, as the Red Sox home stadium only held about 33,000 fans and the Sox needed to recoup the money lost on the postponed game.
Two games for the price of one. The New York Yankees used to regularly hold these kind of doubleheaders in my youth. I used to hate Sundays when the Detroit Tigers came in for a twin bill. A dose of righthander Frank Lary, who owned the Yanks, and outfielder Charlie Maxwell, who played average ball against anyone but New York, where he would invariably hit 1-2 homers to beat the Yankees, much to the chagrin of ex-Yankee then broadcaster Phil Rizzuto.
I went to a sunny, warm Memorial Day double dip in 1968, when the expansion Washington Senators, led by 6'7" first baseman Frank Howard, played the Yankees. I recall the Yankees, by then en route to another losing season in the late 1960's, splitting the two games with the Nats. The games were actually held on a Thursday, which was May 30th and back then, Memorial Day. My childhood idol, Mickey Mantle, blasted 2 homers and went 5 for 5 in Game 1; I recall right handed pitchers Stan Bahnsen of New York and Joe Coleman for Washington facing each other. I do not have any recollection about Game 2 other than New York lost and Cuban righthander Camilo Pascual, he of the great curve ball, pitched and won . By way of the Baseball Almanac, the Yankees won 13-4 and Washington took the second game 6-2. A crowd of 28, 197 came to Yankee Stadium, including my crew of Bob, Don and Eric, who joined me in box seats down the third base line. A great memory indeed.
Look at today's schedule and this coming Tuesday's July 4th schedule. Not one doubleheader. Moreover, looking back at this past Memorial Day, there were no doubleheaders and some teams actually had the day off.
Baseball began scaling back doubleheaders as early as 1959 according to a June 9, 2017 story in The New York Times. That article gives a great chronology of how baseball weaned itself of doubleheaders, starting in Milwaukee, Los Angeles and San Francisco because the revenue from two single games exceeded the take from a one admission doubleheader. The Times noted that only three "conventional" doubleheaders have been scheduled since 2000--in Minnesota, Philadelphia and the last one, in 2011 in Oakland.
Which is why Tampa Bay went retro by regularly scheduling a doubleheader this season. The Rays have the worst attendance in Major League Baseball. Their owner grew up in Brooklyn and in his youth attended many New York Mets twin bills at Shea Stadium. The Mets even played a 23 inning second game versus the visiting San Francisco Giants on May 31, 1964--the longest doubleheader ever. Thus he went back to his roots by having his Rays team play two in June.
Players hated two games with only a 20 minute intermission. In college, I tired greatly in Game 2 for lack of food and enough water--and we only played 7 innings. Rays star third baseman Eva Longoria, said he could be wrong, but he didn't think traditional doubleheaders was something fans wanted.
While he may be right given that the millennials have decried the slow pace for MLB games, doubleheaders can be a viable option for those franchises who are struggling. To boost weeknight attendance at the old Madison Square Garden and to lure college basketball fans used to doubleheaders, the NBA and the Knicks held Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday twin bills. Moving into the present Garden stopped that; college basketball doubleheaders are still common in the New York area. Even the NFL used a doubleheader in the old 80, 000 seat Cleveland Municipal Stadium for pre-season football. The Browns would host the second game after two other teams met. In one of those doubleheaders, Joe Namath of the New York Jets tore up his knee vainly trying to chase a defensive back who had intercepted one of Namath's passes.
Rutgers uses doubleheaders too. At MSG, in conjunction with the Big 10 Conference, they have been involved in the now annual January Big 10 basketball/hockey extravaganza--an afternoon hoops match up with an evening hockey contest. Plus, this coming November, there will be a football/wrestling doubleheader between Rutgers and Maryland at Yankee Stadium.
So when it behooves the administrators to squeeze some revenue out of the patrons, then a doubleheader becomes a delicious offering. I believe that there are enough venues in MLB that regularly scheduling a doubleheader on a Sunday or a holiday would enhance fan interest and get the youth and even the millennials more interested in baseball; the Commissioner can continue to independently work on ways to speed up the games.
Give it a try, MLB. Market the two games/one admission concept smartly. You have nothing to lose and a lot more fans to gain.
Speaking of losses, I stayed up very late Saturday night into Sunday morning to watch the Pacquiao-Horn fight. ESPN was televising this from the rugby pitch in Brisbane, Australia, the hometown of Horn. Of course, the draw was Pacquiao, the legendary holder of titles in 8 weight classes, fighting on almost-free TV. The fight package was marketed to enhance Pacquiao under the guise of his "giving" back something to boxing fans. Which he did by losing an unanimous decision to Horn.
ESPN's announcing trio had Pacquiao comfortably ahead on their scorecard. They hyped Horn as "Rocky' by lasting 12 rounds with the champ. The 55,000 present (it did not look full at all to me) according to the announcers, were seeing a real treat. Except that the judges did not see it that way.
Curiously, as the fight progressed and Horn came dangerously close to a TKO from a deep cut at the corner of his right eye, one of the announces, ex-boxer Timothy Bradley, who actually had handed Pacquiao one of his 9 defeats, started to harp on a belief that the fight was closer than the others (and the audience) thought. It seemed that Pacquiao had lost his mojo just enough in the last 3 rounds, but I didn't think he had lost the fight. At least that is what I thought.
ESPN in conjunction with Top Rank Boxing has invested a lot of money into upcoming lighter weight title fights this summer. What better way to promote the next series of fight cards by having an upset? I find the judges in boxing to be questionable--I see it in the Olympics and I see it professionally. Nothing surprises me in terms of an outcome when it is boxing, no matter how clearly I thought I saw the fight.
Fights have been fixed before--not like a fake WWE battle--but for a variety of reasons. I am not saying that is the case here. The result was bizarre. Immediately there were calls for Pacquiao to retire at age 38 and go back to being a beloved Senator in his home land of the Philippines. But as the lead announcer for ESPN noted, there was a clause inserted in the contract that gave Pacquaio a rematch as Horn's first title defense. Assuredly, the moguls at ESPN and Top Rank Boxing must be mulling in the color of green,, thinking of the ratings and money to be generated on the next Pacquiao-Horn fight...
There it is. My take on 2 events. I didn't think I was splitting hairs for my opinions on this twin bill.
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