Cousin Bink's Country Beer Jamboree

Volume 1, Issue 8

When I imagine going to a Major League Baseball game I picture the sun shining. I picture having to take out a small business loan to get a few cold refreshments. I picture coming home with a little sunburn on my arms and legs. I plan on witnessing a live chicken being sacrificed so Jobu will let the Cuban hit a curveball.

What I don't enjoy is thinking about going to baseball games where I'll have to decide how many stocking hats I should wear, not whether or not I should wear one. That is what happened this week on Opening Day as two games had to be canceled for a day due to the weather, while many games were played in cold and wet conditions. Let's take a closer look at these games, shall we:

• Kansas City at Chicago- Game postponed 18 hours before game due to forecasts of snow and freezing temperatures.
  
• Tampa Bay at Boston- Postponed for rain.
  
• New York (N) at Cincinnati- 37 degrees and light rains throughout.
  
• Cleveland at Texas- 49 degrees and sunny
• New York (A) at Baltimore- 56 degrees with light rain
• Colorado at Arizona- 80 degrees with roof closed
• Detroit at Toronto- 66 degrees with roof closed
• Washington at Florida- 90 degrees and partly cloudy (now that's more like it)
• Pittsburgh at St. Louis- 42 degrees and cloudy
• Seattle at Minnesota- 69 degrees, in a dome
• Oakland at LA Angels- 75 degrees and clear
• Cubs at Houston- 68 degrees with roof closed
• LA Dodgers at San Diego- 75 degrees and sunny

So what should major league baseball do?

Push the start of the season back a week? Well, considering that would push the playoffs back a week and the World Series had to be postponed for 2 days this past year that wouldn't work. But looking at the weather for opening day, there is a solution. We'll do this by league, starting with the senior circuit. There are 5 teams in the west, but Colorado's a bit iffy this time of year, so we'll say we have four teams. Houston and Milwaukee have domes, so that makes 6. Moving onto the east where we have Florida, Atlanta, and I guess you'll have to hope for Washington to have some nice weather. That makes 8 teams that should have good weather so for the first 2 weeks have these cities host home games.

Moving to the AL you have the four teams in the AL West. In Minnesota, Tampa and Toronto you have domes and once again we have 7, which is all we need for 14 teams and you can do the same thing, starting the first two weeks in these cities.

Now this is in noway a full-proof plan. I went to a game last year on April 26th that was delayed for 3 hours due to cold weather and a snow/rain mix, but this is just a way to improve Opening Day, not to get rid of delays completely.