Quote:
Originally Posted by Waninski
I was looking through this year's schedules for my AAA and AA affiliate and noticed they have hardly any offdays at all. In April, their season starts on 4/5 and they don't have their first day off until 4/30! That's 4 consecutive weeks of games. They only have one off day ever month, and it comes at the very end of each month. Certainly this can't be how the real schedules work.
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If you're talking about the schedules for the minor leagues included in the MAL, those are the real thing. So if they look odd, that's because they are.
Consider that AAA leagues play 144 games in 152 days; that leaves just 8 off days for the season, and two or three of those are usually part of an All-Star break. The AA leagues play 140 or 142 games in 151-152 days, leaving 10-12 off days for the season.
It's even worse in earlier years. In the 1950s, the American Association used to play 154 games in about 151 days; the International League used to play 154 games in only 144-145 days. My favourite is probably the 1929 Texas League, which had clubs playing 164 games in just 152 days. Plus there were NO scheduled off days at all in the entire schedule, not a single one. It was 152 consecutive days of baseball.
Minor league schedules have, historically, always been time-compressed. It's one of the features which distinguish them from major league schedules.