An Amazin'ly Stupid Article In Today's NY Post

Normally, I have a lot of respect for New York Post sportswriter Phil Mushnick. For years, his columns have been among the first I turn to whenever I buy the Post. But today, I feel like he gave the Mets a cheap shot without doing any research on the topic he was blasting them for.

In his weekly Sunday feature, Equal Time, Phil Mushnick discusses the scheduling of an April night game at Citi Field. You can read the entire article here, but if your link-clicking finger is on the disabled list, I will copy and paste the article below. The title of the post is "April Night Game is Amazin'ly Stupid":

"The Mets' 2011 schedule perfectly fits the Bud Selig Era.

For example, if logic were applied what time would you schedule a home game against Washington on Saturday, April 9th? Early afternoon, 1 p.m., right? It's a night game. A night game on Saturday, April 9th. Now get this: Starting May 14 through Sept. 10, the Mets are not scheduled to play an early afternoon Saturday game, not home or away. There are a few 4:10 starts for FOX, but the rest are night games. Not even one traditional (sensible) 1 p.m. Saturday start for 18 consecutive Saturdays!"

Although scheduling a Saturday night game for early April in a cold weather city is unusual, there is a simple reason for this.

Look at the date. It's Saturday, April 9. When is Opening Day at Citi Field? Friday, April 8. Most teams schedule a day off after their home opener. They do this because Opening Day is usually the only game they can count on to be a sellout. Therefore, if the game is postponed because of poor weather, the game can be made up the following day, where it would still be the home opener and the team can still capitalize from the expected high attendance. Without that day off after Opening Day, the league would have to make the game up as part of an in-season doubleheader or find a mutual day off for the two teams to play the game.

Attendance at makeup games is usually far below sellout status. With attendance at Citi Field dropping in 2010, any game that has the potential to be a sellout becomes quite important to the team from a financial standpoint. Other than the Subway Series games against the Yankees, Opening Day might be the only guaranteed sellout at Citi Field in 2011.

However, with the league deciding to move away from its usual Monday Opening Day, the Mets will now be opening up the season in Florida on Friday, April 1. Their home opener is scheduled for one week later, also on a Friday. Scheduling a day off after the home opener would create a Saturday without a baseball game at Citi Field. Since teams always play on the weekends (the majority of scheduled off-days are on Monday or Thursday), the Mets would not be able to schedule an off-day on Saturday, April 9.

Therefore, the Mets had to make their first Saturday game at Citi Field a night game. In the event that the home opener is rained out (or snowed out), the game would more than likely be made up as part of a day-night doubleheader the following day (Saturday, April 9). The regularly scheduled night game would go on as scheduled at 7:10pm, but the rescheduled home opener would be played during the day on Saturday. It would still be the first home game of the season for the Mets, maintaining its Opening Day status, and would still attract a sellout crowd.

Had Phil Mushnick put some thought into his article before writing it, he would have realized what took me just a few minutes to explain. The Mets are not Amazin'ly stupid for scheduling a night game on April 9. They're actually doing the right thing, from both a business standpoint and for the sake of the fans who still want to go to Opening Day. It's too bad Mushnick couldn't do the right thing before submitting his article.