Too much baseball? If you believe First Baseman Anthony Rizzo from the Chicago Cubs, then yes! He would rather prefer a shorter season and even accept a reduction in salary.
“I think we play too much baseball,” Rizzo said in his weekly radio interview with ESPN 1000. But are we playing the game for the money or because we love the game? “I know it’s both, but in the long run it would make everything better.”
If it went to Rizzo, one would find a way to adjust salaries to a game plan with fewer games. He proposes, for example, to simply adopt the existing contracts and to pay correspondingly less for new deals.
But he also knows: “As soon as you start taking money from the boys, things get a little hot.”
The reason for Rizzo’s business games is that the Cubs had to play in icy temperatures. Before two games were cancelled, the Cubs played against the Braves on Saturday in rain and temperatures near freezing. And also on Tuesday at the game against the St. Louis Cardinals (5:3 Cardinals) it was 0 degrees Celsius at the first pitch.
“I think playing in the cold sucks,” Rizzo said. “When you think about games between the Cubs and Cardinals, you think about a nice Saturday at Wrigley Field. You’re not thinking of playing at -6 degrees Celsius.”
But even if the schedule remained 162 games, Rizzo would at least prefer a later start date: “In a perfect world we start later and play a few scheduled double headers followed by a day off. And he raised the question: “As a fan you go to a game in April and it’s raining, snowing and it’s damn cold. Is it really that much fun?”
Rizzo also admitted, however, that he does not really assume that he is turning away from the status quo. Instead, all parties involved would have to cope with the winter conditions that currently prevail in many states.
This article was published without previous view by the Major League Baseball.