Doubleheaders

There are no more doubleheaders in Major League Baseball. For the past several years, there have been “day-night doubleheaders” or “split doubleheaders” or some other linguistic concoction to indicate that there will be two games on one day, but that they will be several hours apart and require two separate admission fees, as well as usually two parking fees, programs, and any other costs the team might be able to extract from the gullible. According to the rules of Major League Baseball:

4.13 (c) The second game of a doubleheader shall start 20 minutes after the first game is completed, unless a longer interval (not to exceed 30 minutes) is declared by the umpire-in-chief and announced to the opposing managers at the end of the first game.

But for the past 20 years or so, MLB has done all it can – from these non-doubleheaders to $100+ tickets to merchandizing of multiple uniforms (two or three caps at $30 each, three or four jerseys at $90 each) per team (collect them all!) to $8 beers to $40 parking to I don’t know what else because I’ve been priced out of MLB for at least the past decade – to turn baseball into a TV program with a live audience of those willing and able to be seduced into paying over $100 per person per game to serve as props for the cameras.