The success Major League Baseball is having overseas has prompted Commissioner Rob Manfred to wonder if reducing the regular season schedule could accommodate more games being played across the pond.
The Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals split their two-game series last weekend in London, drawing rave reviews and sell-out crowds.
“There are things that could be done in the schedule in order to create more window of an opportunity for play here,” commissioner Rob Manfred said, via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “There’s been conversation over the years about 154 (games) as opposed to 162. That would be an easy alternative.”
The regular season schedule has been set at 162 games since 1961.
Next season, the London Series will feature the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies. Those games are scheduled for June 8 and 9.
The idea of playing games outside of the United States will continue as Major League Baseball sets its sight on Paris, Japan, Mexico City in the next few season.
“We like the start-the-season idea because it does give you flexibility in spring training, it gives players time to recover after travel,” Manfred said. “Absolutely necessary going to Asia. We see Europe differently. The flight is not all that much worse than east to west (that) we do all the time. We have to play here at a point in time where we have some degree of certainty about the weather. (That could change) over time if the game grows in popularity here the way we hope it does.”
