Quote:
Originally Posted by thehef
Switch home team allowed would be to account for when, historically (minimal and less-than-thorough research appears to confirm) make-up games were sometimes held in the opposite city, presumably for travel/geographic/scheduling considerations/restrictions. For example, if LA is rained out in Cincy and there are no more games on the schedule between the two teams in Cincy, the game might be made up later when the teams meet in LA.
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That actually has been standard practice since the early part of the 20th century. If the game can't be made up in the original park it's made up in the other club's park. What is rare is when, for some reason, MLB has decreed the team hosting the game will bat first rather than second.
To continue your example, the last scheduled game of LA at CIN is rained out. The game is then made up as part of the next time CIN is at LA. Normally in this case LA would be the home team and CIN the visitor (in other words CIN will have less than 81 home games played and LA more than 81). But instead, even though the game is taking place in LA in its park, CIN is treated as the home team and bats second while LA bats first. MLB has done this sort of thing a couple of times over the last few years; not sure if it's a change in policy in terms of how games played at the other team's park are made up or if it was just special circumstances.