Additional Thoughts on the NFL/MLB Scheduling Conflict

I have just a few more comments and thoughts on the NFL/MLB situation involving the Orioles’ scheduled game on Thursday, September 5th. (1)    To reiterate, the NFL declaring that a game cannot be played on Rosh Hashanah is contradicted by their own history.  The NFL has had no problems scheduling games on the first night of Rosh Hashanah in the recent past.  Week 2 games were canceled in the NFL in 2001 following 9/11.  However, the Monday Night Football game scheduled for that week that year fell on the first night of Rosh Hashanah and was scheduled to be the Vikings vs. the Ravens IN Baltimore.

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The NFL Attempts to Bully the Orioles

The Ravens official twitter account sent out the following two tweets on Monday morning.  Putting aside the peculiarity of an official team twitter account citing an anonymous league source on a situation that directly involves the input of said team, the tweets struck me as odd for another reason.  While the first simply lays out the conflict – which has been anticipated since the Ravens won the Super Bowl – the second message is a little more provocative.  Not only might the Ravens not play at home on Thursday night to kick off the NFL season, they might “have to” go on the road to play that Thursday night game.

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Quick Thoughts on 2013 Schedule

Major League Baseball has put up preliminary team schedules for the 2013 season.  They are subject to change, but often are not altered very much from the original form.  A few quick thoughts below on the O’s schedule: *  The Orioles open up on the road – in Tampa – for the third time in four years.  I know every team would like to open at home and simply can’t logistically.  Still, it annoys me a bit that the Rays continually receive home openers despite a poor stadium and poor attendance.  I am starting to think that this year’s opener was at home only because the Orioles were celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Camden Yard.  It isn’t a big deal or anything, just a tad annoying.  Besides, after a long winter, who wants to watch the first games of the Spring in a dark, gloomy, dome?

*  Why in the world is there is a scheduled off day on April 9th right in the middle of a 3-game series against the Red Sox?  I don’t think I have ever seen that before.

*  There are quite a few off days early on in the season – five before May 17th.  This includes two the first two weeks of the season and three in early May.

*  The Padres have an off day on Thursday, May 9th, fly to Tampa to play a three game weekend series, have another day off on the 13th, then play a 2-game series against the Orioles before flying back to San Diego (without an off day) to fly back and play the Nationals.  I know coordinating schedules of 30 different teams is difficult, but that seems unnecessarily ridiculous.

*  The end of May features four O’s vs. Nationals games – two played in Baltimore and two in DC.  I actually sort of like that idea.  The odd thing is that after playing 6 games per season against one another since 2005, the two geographic rivals will meet only four times in 2013.

*  A stretch in mid-August where the O’s go to the West Coast for interleague play (vs. Padres, Giants, and Diamondbacks) sees them have 3 off days in 11 days.  Days off do not really help when they are all lumped together like that.

* After a four-game series against the White Sox ending on August 8th, the O’s finish out the season with 20 straight games against AL East opponents.

EDIT:  It was mentioned elsewhere that the day off on April 9th is probably because the Red Sox home opener is the 8th.  MLB regularly schedules an off day after the scheduled home opener in case of a rain out.  I assume that is the reason, even though the Orioles didn't have that open day after this year's scheduled home opener.  The Rays don't in 2013 either, but that could perhaps be a function of playing in a dome (unless of course that dome is the Rogers Centre).

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