Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – you know him as one of the Cardinals beat writers – recently received some scheduling information about the 2018 season, and there’s a bunch of notable bits.
For example, the 2018 season will have a shorter spring training schedule (finally) while the regular season will be extended by four games (EDIT: DAYS not games – that was poorly worded and incorrect). That’s sort of a two birds, one stone outcome for those of us who called for shorter spring training schedules in the past and the players who are always okay with more days off.
Because of these changes, the regular season will start earlier than usual this year, extending into the back end of March (which, hell ya – less time without baseball is always a good thing!).
But that’s not the biggest change, according to Goold. Instead, the biggest change has to do with the team he covers in St. Louis and their rivals up north, the Chicago Cubs.
For the first time ever, MLB will hold a single “Spotlight” game on the Thursday of every All-Star break, and it’ll be the only game played that night (like a Sunday night baseball contest). Apparently, teams will only be selected to play in this game once during the span of the current CBA and the very first one will be between the Cubs and Cardinals at Wrigley Field.
That is awesome.
The Cubs and Cardinals rivalry is among the best in baseball, and the fire is only growing as these two teams square up in a divisional race down the stretch. I think they’re a perfectly good pair of teams to headline a brand new baseball event and I can’t wait to watch the Cubs kick their teeth in (who knows, maybe the Cardinals will find that cat by then).
It seems like there’ll be a number of changes to the schedule and game itself before next season, but this is the first to come out. Stay tuned and we’ll update you with anything else we find out.