Some friends and I drove down to the O.co Coliseum on Saturday to witness something rare in Major League Baseball these days: an old-fashioned doubleheader.
As part of its ”80s Weekend promotion, the Oakland Athletics offered fans the opportunity to watch two baseball games for the price of one.
Common practice for nearly a century of MLB history, scheduled doubleheaders have all but disappeared in the last couple decades.
In fact, Saturday”s matchup between the A”s and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim was the first scheduled doubleheader in the majors since August 2003.
Now I”m not forgetting the fact teams play two games on the same day several times a year because of rainouts and other delays. But stadium staff herds fans out of the ballpark in between those doubleheaders: one ticket, one game.
Not Saturday though.
For the first time in my life, I watched two pro baseball games for one ticket – a reasonably priced one at that because the game was played at the outdated Coliseum.
In the interest of full disclosure, I didn”t watch both games in their entireties; a couple of my friends got bored before the second game even started, so my group left after the third inning and watched the end back home on television.
Despite the disappointment of being forced to leave in the middle of the game (who says carpooling is always a great idea?), the whole experience was pretty cool.
First-pitch in Game 1 came just after 1:05 p.m. and the large crowd seemed enthralled throughout the three-plus-hour game. Unfortunately for the home fans, the Angels got a few more clutch hits and won the game 4-2.
Game 2 started just before 5 p.m., roughly 35 minutes after the first game ended. The A”s donned their green uniforms for the second game, changing out of their Game 1 whites.
Oakland starter Rich Harden pitched decently and the bullpen dominated as the A”s won the second game 4-3 on Scott Sizemore”s walk-off 10th-inning single.
Though the teams split the two games, plenty of interesting facts resulted from the first scheduled doubleheader in Oakland since 1997.
Here are a few: Angels outfielder Torii Hunter went hitless in eight at-bats between both games, the Angels hit three home runs (the A”s none, of course) and A”s designated hitter Hideki Matsui hit a double in Game 1 that looked like a home run from the stands but the umpires reviewed the play and upheld the double call.
All in all, I had a great time.
And it seemed most of my fellow fans did too. People were grilling in the parking lot in the morning, the Coliseum was packed and supporters of both teams got to see a win.
Since fans had a good time Saturday and scheduled doubleheaders used to be a weekend norm just a few decades ago, I can”t help but wonder if other MLB teams will consider working in a doubleheader or two next year.
Most teams would be unwilling to part with the ticket revenue from a weekend game, so they probably would only consider a weekday 2-for-1 doubleheader. But teams that have attendance troubles (like the A”s) might be open to using a 2-for-1 promotion on the weekend.
Perhaps it shouldn”t be solely up to the teams to make the decision; maybe MLB executives should implement occasional doubleheaders. There are plenty of reasons to support more of them.
The MLB regular season extends later into the year than ever before and pushes the playoffs sometimes into November. By that time, not only is the weather bad, but most sports fans are engrossed by the National League Football regular season and usually ignore the World Series.
Baseball needs to fit into America”s attention span and doubleheaders could help. If each team had three to five doubleheaders in its schedule (like in baseball”s heyday), the regular season could be shortened by at least a week, keeping the World Series closer to Columbus Day than Thanksgiving.
The players union should support doubleheaders more than they do now because more same-day games could allow the bench guys more playing time.
Managers who like to work for a living could also enjoy them because doubleheaders are more challenging to strategize for.
But the owners will probably have the final say and won”t want their pocketbooks to take the hit of giving away free games to loyal fans.
Re-establishing the scheduled doubleheader could greatly help the MLB, but don”t look for it to happen anytime soon. At least now I can say I saw one in my life.
Jeremy Walsh is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. He can be reached at 263-5636 ext. 37 or jwalsh@record-bee.com.
