MLB’S MARCH MADNESS
2018 SEASON FEATURES EARLIEST START EVER
CHICAGO — Don’t book your springbreak travel too late on the 2018 calendar — unless you’re all right missing Opening Day.
Major League Baseball on Tuesday announced its schedule for next season, and it will feature its earliest North American season openers ever, across the board. On March 29, all 30 teams will open action, including the Yankees in Toronto and the Mets at home against the Cardinals.
The pushed-up openers, which will give each team three or four extra off-days and create an extra weekend of action, result from the collective bargaining agreement on which the players and owners agreed in December. The players felt they needed more rest to handle the grind of the 162game schedule, and in accordance with that, the sides agreed to a complex formula by which getaway-day games will be played earlier (as long as they’re not nationally televised) when either team has to travel a long distance to its next game.
The previous earliest North American openers were played on March 30, which occurred in 2003, 2008 and 2014. MLB has held overseas series, including Mets-Cubs in 2000 and Yankees-Devil Rays in 2004, earlier on the calendar. This also will mark the first time since 1968 that all the teams (there were only 20 back then) open on the same date.
Next year’s interleague divisional matchups are East-East, Central-Central and West-West, and when that happens, the Yankees and Mets face each other six times instead of four.