Column: How UConn can help the MLB’s attendance problems

The UConn baseball team was supposed to have its home-opener on March 7. Scheduling a game in early March in Storrs, Connecticut left an approximately zero percent chance that the game would actually be played. Sure enough, it was cancelled, along with the next scheduled home game and the Huskies ended up playing their home-opener three weeks later.

So far, UConn has had five home games postponed or cancelled altogether and only six home games have been successfully played. One of the six could not even be finished due to darkness.

UConn knows the possible problems weather can have in early season games and it accounts for this by front-loading the schedule with away games. The Huskies have played 25 of their 31 games on the road so far.

Major League Baseball is experiencing similar weather troubles in its season’s opening month, but unlike the schedule-makers in Storrs, the MLB leaves itself vulnerable to these issues.

After six more games were postponed due to weather Sunday, the MLB is up to 21 weather-related postponements. It’s only April 16 and this is already the second-most postponements in the month of April since 2000, according to Forbes

Twelve of 18 days this season have seen at least one game postponed due to weather.

And when the games are actually played, there have been some miserable conditions in MLB games over the past two and a half weeks. There have been plenty of players in ski masks, games played in snow and fans sitting in below-freezing temperatures. At Fenway Park, fans received free hot chocolate at concession stands during Sunday’s game as a reward for “staying in the cold weather.”

“I was miserable, nothing short of miserable,” Red Sox ace Chris Sale said after Sunday’s game against the Orioles. “I said it when I came out of the game: ‘This is the most miserable I’ve ever been on a baseball field, by far, not even close.’”

In San Diego, things have been a little different.

“Attention: Due to weather, today’s game will be…played as scheduled,” the Padres tweeted Sunday afternoon.

Josh Buser is a senior staff writer for The Daily Campus. He can be reached via email at joshua.buser@uconn.edu.