The Boys of Summer go shivering into November
NEW YORK — Joe Maddon walked to the mound in a ski cap. Yoenis Cespedes wore a balaclava. As baseball’s post-season keeps getting longer, the Boys of Summer are starting to resemble skiers on a Steamboat Springs lift line.
“This weather is not for me,” Cubs infielder Javier Baez said. “I’m from Puerto Rico, and you know how the weather is on the island — it’s hot all year long.”
Players wish there was only six degrees of separation between the dog days of summer and the coolest venues in baseball they all try to reach — the post-season.
It was 8 C when the NL Championship Series opener began at New York’s Citi Field last weekend and 7 C for the start of Game 2. The teams did get a break with a 22 C night at Chicago’s Wrigley Field for Game 4 on Wednesday.
“Baseball is a warm weather sport. Guys like to sweat,” Toronto manager John Gibbons said. “The pitchers tend to have the advantage and dominate a little bit more because guys get sawed off and guys’ hands are hurting. You’re just not as loose and relaxed.”
Before the start of the League Championship Series in 1969, the World Series ended by Oct. 16 each year except for 1910, when the NL attempted to expand the regular season to 168 games from 154 before backing off, and 1911, when there were six days off between Games 3 and 4 because of rain.
Expanded playoffs and television have extended the schedule, with the Division Series round starting in 1995 and a one-game wild-card matchup added for 2012. Game 7 this year is scheduled for Nov. 4, which would match 2009 for the latest date a World Series game has been played.
All World Series games were played in the daytime until 1971, when the lure of television money started the night owl transformation.
There hasn’t been a Series day game since 1987 — and no outdoor day games since 1984.
Since 1990, the coldest temperature at the start of a post-season contest was 1.6 C when Colorado hosted Philadelphia for Game 3 of a 2009 NL Division Series.