Oakland Athletics’ Matt Olson, right, celebrates with Ryon Healy (25) after hitting a two-run home run in the sixth inning of the second baseball game of a doubleheader against the Houston Astros, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

By London Marq

OAKLAND–On September 9th, The Oakland Athletics host a doubleheader with the AL West leading Houston Astros. Doubleheaders in professional baseball have been popular since around the since the 1880’s. Originally used to make up games cancelled by weather conditions. Today though are seemingly used up make scheduling/traveling easier and make up rained out games.

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey we’ve seen numerous sports teams on the southern United States cancel or reschedule games. In the MLB no team has been more effected than the Houston Astros. The were unfortunate to have homes games not only postponed, but some were moved to neutral sites. Others turned into double headers, such as the first game in Houston after Harvey had passed.

Controversy ensued when the Texas Rangers refused to swap home games with the Rangers in light of their post season chances. While easy criticism was made of the Rangers choice, from a competitive standpoint it does make sense. Houston already had the benefit of having the best record in the division while the rangers were trying to catch up.

The Athletics Astros doubleheader was a scheduled double header. That is to say that without the tragedies of Mother Nature, they were set to play two games yesterday no matter what. That means that there is an extra day that players have to play twice, which doesn’t make much since if you are really trying to save a small handful of days over the course of a season.

Due to the weather, the Astros schedule was already jumbled. I argue that that they are put at a competitive disadvantage, due to all of the circumstances already. Having a scheduled double header leaves less room for alterations to the schedule. This is why doubleheaders are important and should be used in need only.

Major League Baseball should extend the regular season and only implement double headers when games on the schedule cannot be played or fit into the schedule. You can retain teams home-field advantage this way. And if games need to be postponed longer than just a few days, you can create double headers by attaching them only future series.

The double-header may be apart of baseball history to be preserved. The way we choose to preserve it however, should benefit the teams playing.

London Marq does them all commentary, baseball coverage, and San Jose Earthquakes coverage, at http://www.sportsradioservice.com