Doubleheader (baseball)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Doubleheader is the term used to describe two baseball games played between the same two teams on the same day. (The term originated in the railroad industry; see doubleheader.)
Today, a doubleheader is generally the result of a prior game between the same two teams being postponed due to inclement weather. Most often the game is rescheduled for a day on which the two teams play each other again. Often it is within the same series, but in some cases, may be weeks or months after the original date. On rare occasions, the last game between two teams in that particular city is rained out, and a doubleheader may be scheduled at the other team's home park to replace the missed game.
In past years, however, originally-scheduled doubleheaders were a regular feature of the schedule; this changed when the Major League Baseball Players' Association won a package of concessions from the owners, which, in addition to virtually abolishing fixed doubleheaders entirely, also called for no team ever to be scheduled to play on more than 19 consecutive days.
There are two types of doubleheader games, day-night and twi-night doubleheaders.
Contents |
[edit] Day-night
A day-night doubleheader is one in which the first game is played in the early afternoon and the other is played at night; in this scenario, spectators have to pay twice to gain admittance to both games. Except in rare circumstances, such as a rain makeup, and only with the approval of the MLBPA, this is illegal under terms of the 2002 Collective Bargaining Agreement. The Elias Sports Bureau does not include this as a doubleheader for the sake of the record books.
[edit] Twi-night
In a twi-night doubleheader, the first game is played in the twilight, or late afternoon; after the first game ends, there is a break of usually 20 to 30 minutes, after which the second game is played. Fans in this case get to see both games for the price of a single ticket. Under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, this is legal provided the start time is no later than 5 p.m.
[edit] Classic
A third type of doubleheader used to exist; the "classic" doubleheader was like the twi-night doubleheader except the first game was played in the early afternoon and the second in the late afternoon. This was done out of necessity in the years before many ballparks had lights; oftentimes if either game went into extra innings the second game was eventually called due to darkness. However, it is extremely rare anymore in the major leagues, even for rain makeups.
[edit] Tripleheaders
There are three recorded instances of a tripleheader in Major League Baseball, indicating three games between the same two teams on the same day. These occurred between the Brooklyn Bridegrooms and Pittsburgh Innocents on September 1, 1890 (Brooklyn won all three); between the Baltimore Orioles and Louisville Colonels on September 7, 1896 (Baltimore won all three); and between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds on October 2, 1920 (Cincinnati won two of the three).
[edit] Home team advantage
Based on past statistics, if the home teams scores handily in the first game of a doubleheader, they will generally win the second game [1].
[edit] College and minors
In college and the minor leagues, however, the doubleheader also results in a shorter game. In most instances, both ends of such a doubleheader are seven innings, even if this was a playoff game; in 1994, the first game of the five-game Pacific Coast League championship series between Vancouver and Albuquerque was rained out; the two teams played a doubleheader, seven innings each, on the originally-scheduled date of the second game. In the minors, the only exception is when the first game is the completion of a suspended game from a prior day; i.e., the game was started but was halted by weather before becoming an official game. In these cases, the suspended game is played to completion (nine innings), and the second game of the doubleheader is seven innings.
[edit] Incidence of swept doubleheaders
According to an albeit old paper in American Statistician, Michael Goodman makes the claim that double-headers are more often swept as opposed to being split, which is against the common thought.
On the Incidence of Swept Double-Headers Michael L. Goodman American Statistician, Vol. 23, No. 5 (Dec., 1969), pp. 15-17 doi:10.2307/2682179
