I read this in an article today about the length of the MLB schedule.

The AL transitioned from a 154-game schedule to a 162-game schedule in 1961. The NL made the switch the following year.


Does anyone know the story behind this?  I imagine it has something to do with expansion but it seems silly.

my guess is it was 100% due to expansion.

In the old 8-team leagues, a 154 game schedule meant 22 games against each opponent.  So 11 at home, 11 on the road and if you check out old MLB schedules, you will find they followed pretty much a similar pattern every year. That was the MLB standard from 1904-1960.

For the AL, the teams divided neatly into "east" and "west."  Boston, NY, Philly, and Washington made up the East, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and St. Louis made up the west.  Franchise moves in the 50s basically swapped Philly (moved to KC) with St. Louis (moved to Baltimore).  The 4 east teams would open up against each other, as would the west, then the eastern teamswould each made the road trip west or vice versa, and this pattern played out pretty evenly across the season.

With the 1961 AL expansion to 10 teams - and remember there were still no divisons yet - it made sense to still have every team play each other the same amount of times.  154 is not divisible by 9, so the logical choices for the length of schedule were 153 or 162.  162 made more sense (18 games per team, 9 home and 9 road) because 153 would have meant 9 home and 8 away games, or vice versa. 

The NL expanded in 1962 and basically followed suit.

agree with contrarian. Money probably had something to do with it too; more games = more revenue, and don't forget TV markets were opening up by then. I imagine that had something to do with it as well.

Would have saved a lot of tension for Maris and Frick if Frank robinson hit 61 homers in 1961

Something 2 consider, from a man (with a keyboard), born in
late 1957, ---less than 2 miles from the very site that Dodger
Stadium would be built upon...

Just as carmakers are already designing the vehicles that we
will be driving in 5-10 years from now, & the Hollywood artist
community already working on the thinking & technologies of
their careers that will determine what movies will be like in the
next 5-10 years, such also applies to baseball in the 50's, with
regard to the notions of expansion...

Ernie Banks ever-loving passion to play a double-header every
single day, would never be possible in baseball's future...

There are several factors not discussed within this thread... An
ever-growing reliance on Air-Traffic Controllers versus the slow
travels of trains, is one aspect concerning the rail travels, which
in effect created an abundance of the double-headers played in
the decades prior to the 1950's... Many teams often found their
schedules w/ 2-3 days off, prior to a series in another city...

Another factoring aspect has much to do with a movie line, from
Jeff Goldblum, -an actor playing a scientist, -in the 1st ''Jurassic
Park'' dinosaur flick... He clearly did not believe that ''life'', by it's
very nature could be contained, as it seeks to grow & expand...

Anyone doing physics relating to travel, knows that St. Louis was
as far west as baseball could realistically exist in past decades...
Even western cities such as Las Vegas could not have had such a
foundation of hope for a flourishing future in the 30's & 40's, - just
by building a dam, & filling it w/ water... It helped immensely, also
having a motoring public from LARGE metropolitan cities, such as
LA, SF, & PHX...

Again, all major sports resemble life's expansive nature... However
important the past may often be perceived, the future remains as a
priority of thought... How soon will sports be global, within a same
league's seasonal schedule ???... Although Scotty beamed aboard
a Capt. Kirk, & a Spock, 50 years ago in the 1960's, how long will it
be before the moon becomes the next Coors Field ???....

Transportation is the single biggest elephant effecting all sports, &
all of life's expansive notions, period... MLB, NFL, NBA, & NHL teams
in Europe, Japan, Australia, & China are nearer than we would think,
& this will alter the norms of seasonal schedules... Even the '2-man'
rotation could return with lengthy travel schedules...

Just "food-4-thought" from a man who speaks to his own fingerless
keyboard, worn on his left wrist... Who knew ???...

good post jsakic

Posted by mlent on 5/8/2015 8:38:00 PM (view original):
Would have saved a lot of tension for Maris and Frick if Frank robinson hit 61 homers in 1961

I don't get it

Robinson played in the NL, which was still playing 154 games that season.

Posted by contrarian23 on 5/9/2015 10:18:00 AM (view original):
Robinson played in the NL, which was still playing 154 games that season.

Got it

Posted by jsakicno19 on 5/9/2015 12:38:00 AM (view original):
Something 2 consider, from a man (with a keyboard), born in
late 1957, ---less than 2 miles from the very site that Dodger
Stadium would be built upon...

Just as carmakers are already designing the vehicles that we
will be driving in 5-10 years from now, & the Hollywood artist
community already working on the thinking & technologies of
their careers that will determine what movies will be like in the
next 5-10 years, such also applies to baseball in the 50's, with
regard to the notions of expansion...

Ernie Banks ever-loving passion to play a double-header every
single day, would never be possible in baseball's future...

There are several factors not discussed within this thread... An
ever-growing reliance on Air-Traffic Controllers versus the slow
travels of trains, is one aspect concerning the rail travels, which
in effect created an abundance of the double-headers played in
the decades prior to the 1950's... Many teams often found their
schedules w/ 2-3 days off, prior to a series in another city...

Another factoring aspect has much to do with a movie line, from
Jeff Goldblum, -an actor playing a scientist, -in the 1st ''Jurassic
Park'' dinosaur flick... He clearly did not believe that ''life'', by it's
very nature could not be contained, as it seeks to grow & expand.

Anyone doing physics relating to travel, knows that St. Louis was
as far west as baseball could realistically exist in past decades...
Even western cities such as Las Vegas could not have had such a
foundation of hope for a flourishing future in the 30's & 40's, - just
by building a dam, & filling it w/ water... It helped immensely, also
having a motoring public from LARGE metropolitan cities, such as
LA, SF, & PHX...

Again, all major sports resemble life's expansive nature... However
important the past may often be perceived, the future remains as a
priority of thought... How soon will sports be global, within a same
league's seasonal schedule ???... Although Scotty beamed aboard
a Capt. Kirk, & a Spock, 50 years ago in the 1960's, how long will it
be before the moon becomes the next Coors Field ???....

Transportation is the single biggest elephant effecting all sports, &
all of life's expansive notions, period... MLB, NFL, NBA, & NHL teams
in Europe, Japan, Australia, & China are nearer than we would think,
& this will alter the norms of seasonal schedules... Even the '2-man'
rotation could return with lengthy travel schedules...

Just "food-4-thought" from a man who speaks to his own fingerless
keyboard, worn on his left wrist... Who knew ???...

You can probably have a football team in London right now, they can play 8 games in London every thurs afternoon (our time) team the opponent would have had the previous week off.  Then have a facility in the US where they can practice for their road games.  The TV market would be the same fans who watch the wed afternoon games on MLB.


As far as baseball on the moon I quote a GE commerical (I think it was GE) from the 1977 or 78 playoffs  "Rod Carew was good but anyone can now hit 400 on this moon turf"

Everything everyone said here is right. 

There is also simple math - you can't get games against 9 opponents to fit a 154 schedule. 

If you play 9 teams 18 times you get 162. If you play them each 17 times you get 153, which means one team in any two-team seasonal series is at a one-game home game disadvantage. It needed to be an even number of overall games. So 162 was the next stop up from 154 once you have 10 teams and each team had 9 opponents. 

With 8 teams, playing 7 opponents, you get 7 times 22 equals 154. 

When baseball expanded again in 1969 to 24 teams, 12 in each league, the issue arose again: they could have gone back to 154 ironically, since 11 times 14 equals 154. Instead, deciding, probably wisely, that having teams be all the way back into 12th place was not very interesting, they broke the leagues each up into two divisions, and kept the 162 schedule by having each team play 18 versus the 5 teams in their 6-team division (equal 90) and 12 games against the 6 opponents in the other division (equals 72) adding up to 162. That kind of made sense since playing more games that counted more - against divisional opponents made sense and kept the even numbered season series of each team against each other team, so they played the same number of home and away games against each team in their league. 

By the way, as I recall, and I will try to look it up, there was one old guy when I was a kid who made up the ENTIRE baseball season schedule by hand every year and had done so for a long time. No computers. 

Yep, found it: Harry Simmons. Then some couple has been doing it till recently:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1936328

And now I've heard rumblings that MLB may return to the 154 game schedule. I would think the owners would protest this...a lot of money at stake. How much do you figure the average team makes with one MLB game?

I like 162 because its divisible by 9, 9 innings 9 players  90 feet between bases, 9 is the perfect baseball number

Posted by cwillis802 on 5/14/2015 9:33:00 PM (view original):
And now I've heard rumblings that MLB may return to the 154 game schedule. I would think the owners would protest this...a lot of money at stake. How much do you figure the average team makes with one MLB game?

Couple million.....40k @$50/person......+ any advertising revenue