Let's Play Two! — Baseball Bench Coach

Someone asked me recently whether I had a favorite summer job when I was growing up. My thoughts immediately turned to umpiring, but then I recalled that first 5 day, 40 hours a week, cushy position as an “assistant office manager” at a bank in downtown Cincinnati. I was basically the errand guy, delivering mail in the main office, taking the executives’ cars for motor vehicle registration and a weekly car wash, and delivering supplies to the eighteen branches across the city. It was fun, I met a lot of people, and it sure beat driving my old Gremlin around town. On a handful of late Friday afternoons that summer I also had something to look forward to after work, meeting up with my buddies and going to Riverfront Stadium for a twi-night doubleheader. Do you remember that relic in baseball’s past? It was the best of all deals, a $6.00 ticket for two MLB games!

Classic doubleheaders where fans were able to attend two games for the price of one were prominent in MLB through the first half of the 20th century. The 1943 White Sox hold the record for most doubleheaders played by a team during a season, 44, more than half of their scheduled 154-game season. In 1959, a quarter of games played (on average, 20 doubleheaders per team) were in the format of two games starting around Noon or 5:00 p.m. The rate of scheduled doubleheaders began to decline over the next several years, falling to 10% of games by 1979. With the urging of owners, MLB for the most part began to eliminate doubleheaders from its scheduling. The reasons for the change most cite are the need to maximize revenue (one gate per game), the taxing of pitching staffs (over the last 50 years we have turned to 5 pitcher starting rotations from the traditional 4), and the safety of catchers and everyday players (today’s game sees half of the MLB rosters comprised of pitchers). The last scheduled single admission day doubleheader was on June 10, 2017, between Tampa and Oakland, a rarity in today’s game.

Doubleheaders nowadays come in the form of day-night doubleheaders, the first game in the afternoon and the second at night, allowing the ultimate money grab, two gates on one day for the home team. These day-night doubleheaders are actually prohibited by the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), unless approved by the Players Association. Most often, they are scheduled for travel relief purposes when a prior game has been rained out and the two teams are not scheduled to return to the home team’s ballpark during the season. Interestingly, the Elias Sports Bureau does not recognize the two games as actual doubleheaders for the record books. The CBA does allow teams to expand rosters on these days so that a starting pitcher can be brought up from AAA to pitch one of the games.

Much of the doubleheader stigma has been cast aside this season considering the new 60-game schedule. With numerous games already cancelled due to COVID-19, MLB schedule makers might be looking into some unique doubleheader options based on past history. The Yankees and Mets since the advent of interleague play have played games in each other’s ballparks on the same day three times when there was a rainout during the first series of the season. Take notice Chicago and Los Angeles! Maybe even more on point, the Cardinals in 1951 and the Indians in 2000 hosted doubleheaders against two different teams in September because there were no common days off for the remainder of the season and the games were needed to decide playoff races. And as the latest version of the 2020 MLB schedule provides, we are going to see this year the arrangement the Reds and Giants struck in July 2013 at then AT&T Park to accommodate travel, where the first game of a doubleheader was the Giants home date but in the second game the Reds were the designated home team due to an earlier rainout in Cincinnati.

I’m not sure this is exactly what Ernie Banks had in mind with his trademark “Let’s play two”! Ernie began playing professional baseball in 1950 with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Baseball League. He signed with the Cubs in September 1953, becoming the Cubs first black player. Banks set all kinds of records, earning the nickname “Mr. Cub” for his spirit on and off the field. He started as a power hitting shortstop, certainly uncommon during the 1950s. Banks won the NL MVP award in 1958 and 1959 for big numbers at the plate and outstanding play in the middle of the diamond. The next year, 1960, Ernie won the Cubs’ first Gold Glove award. Banks moved to first base in 1961, finishing his Hall of Fame career there in 1971. Ernie’s catchphrase “It’s a beautiful day for baseball, let’s play two!” summed up his love of the game, especially for playing daylight games at his beloved Wrigley Field. For a wonderful, recent biography of his life, check out “Let’s Play Two: The Life and Times of Ernie Banks” (2019) by Doug Wilson.

Playing in the sunlight at Wrigley Field is a perfect setting for my favorite doubleheader story, one of a player not a team. On August 4, 1982, Joel Youngblood of the Mets stepped into the box at Wrigley to face Ferguson Jenkins of the Cubs. In the third inning of the game he drove in two runs with a single. Youngblood was replaced after the at-bat because he had been traded to the Expos. Youngblood was asked to board a plane out of Chicago and head to Philadelphia for Montreal’s game that night against the Phillies. He made it to the ballpark while the game was being played, and delivered a pinch hit single against the Phillies’ ace Steve Carlton in the seventh inning. Not only is Youngblood the only player in baseball history to get hits in two games in two cities for two teams on the same day, but how about those hits coming off of two future Hall of Fame pitchers!

Recognizing the “dynamic circumstances” of the 2020 season and the need to schedule frequent games and promote player safety, MLB with the support of the Players Association announced on July 31 a rule change that all doubleheader games may be completed in 7 innings. Separately, MLB announced that rosters would be expanded during these doubleheaders. On August 2, the Reds swept the Tigers in the first such seven-inning twin bill. Interestingly and maybe telling as the season moves forward, past MLB doubleheader results show that a sweep is far more common than a split. Doubleheader success will be critical for teams like St. Louis and Miami, as they scramble to get in 60 games before season’s end.

While the Cardinals finally returned to action on Saturday with a doubleheader sweep over the White Sox, their schedule ahead is daunting, 52 games in the next 42 days. Of course, that means many doubleheaders, and as expected, playing the role of the designated home team while finding themselves in the visitors’ clubhouse. MLB announced late last week the scheduling of most of these doubleheaders, including two this week against the Cubs, 5 games in the course of 3 days. I’m sure Chicago will do everything possible to prevent the first ever, walk-off win by their rivals at Wrigley. It’s definitely a new, crazy world with lots of ramifications for all teams involved – bringing up pitchers from their taxi squads to start games; working with 3 catchers on the roster; and providing enough rest for position players. It will be interesting to watch from the comfort of our homes.

MLB noted in the July 31 rule change announcement that despite the seven-inning doubleheaders, in case of inclement weather a game will still be deemed complete after 5 innings of play or 4 ½ innings if the home team is ahead. When I was growing up, I remember convincing my parents to go to a Reds Sunday afternoon doubleheader against the Padres. While they agreed to go, the caveat was we would make a leisurely day of it, perhaps arriving in the middle of the first game. As we drove to the ballpark that day listening to the car radio with the Reds leading 3-0 after three innings, dark clouds loomed. We made it to our seats as the fourth inning ended. Rain poured after the Padres final out in the fifth, giving the Reds a first game 3-0 win and cancelling the second game. Our $6.00 per ticket was for one-half inning, not two games, also a result that Ernie Banks did not have in mind.

Until next Monday,

your Baseball Bench Coach