Old-Sked Game Times

[froghair]

Anyone have an old resource on game times? Day games in the 50s, 60s -- later than 1p, I think. Just looking for any old skeds that include game times.

[Le Grande Orange]

Start times have never appeared as part of the schedules published by the Major Leagues until the late 1990s and the advent of the internet era. The only way to gather scheduled start times would be from individual team guides, if they included such information, or in the sports section's daily schedule published in the newspaper(s) of the city of that club.

The first instance I came across of a newspaper publishing the start time for all the games scheduled on that day was the Chicago Tribune, which started doing so in July of 1964. The New York Times didn't start including start times for all games in its sports section until the latter half of the 1970s. I don't know about other newspapers.

From my examination of the daily schedule for 1951, here are the start times for NYC-based clubs. Other teams were probably similar.

Single game, day (in the order of Mon-Fri; Sat; Sun)
Yankees: 2:30 pm; 2:00 pm; 2:00 pm
Giants: 1:30 pm; 1:30 pm; 2:30 pm
Dodgers: 1:30 pm; 1:30 pm; 2:00 pm

Single game, night (in the order of Mon-Fri; Sat; Sun)
Yankees: 8:30 pm; no games; no games
Giants: 8:30 pm; no games; no games
Dodgers: 8:30 pm; 8:30 pm; no games

Doubleheader, day (in the order of Mon-Fri; Sat; Sun)
Yankees: 1:30 pm; 1:00 pm; 2:00 pm
Giants: 1:30 pm; no games; 2:00 pm
Dodgers: 1:30 pm; 1:30 pm; 2:00 pm

Doubleheader, twi-night(played Mon-Fri only)
Yankees: 5:30 pm
Giants: no games
Dodgers: 6:00 pm

[froghair]

thank you .. I eventually did find some photos of old pocket skeds.

2pm games used to be somewhat common, and I found a couple sources .. just don't know the years .. that indicated Yankees and maybe other NY teams played some 3:30 pm and 4:00 pm day games.(Love that time slot as a fan .. summer weekday: work a bit, catch a game, then dinner after. Home before its dark.)

And across the board, just about all night games were 8, 8:30 pm starts .. which of course sounds late to us as modern fans because the two-hour-15-minute game is hard to imagine.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by froghair

2pm games used to be somewhat common, and I found a couple sources .. just don't know the years .. that indicated Yankees and maybe other NY teams played some 3:30 pm and 4:00 pm day games.

Yes. In the pre-lights era of baseball, games typically started at 3:30 pm or 4:00 pm during the week. This gradually moved up by about a half-hour by the mid-1930s, and from there kept gradually moving earlier.

The 2:00 pm time on Sunday for NYC clubs in 1951 was due to local laws which prohibited games from starting earlier on that day.

Originally Posted by froghair

And across the board, just about all night games were 8, 8:30 pm starts .. which of course sounds late to us as modern fans because the two-hour-15-minute game is hard to imagine.

Yes, 8:30 pm was the initial starting time for night games. (In the minors, sometimes it was as late as 9:00 pm.) Night games, just like day games, gradually got moved to earlier start times as the years went on.

Getting scheduled start times for Major League games is on my (too long) list of projects I want to research...

[JaBurns]

In generated fictional schedule is there a way to have all games start at the same time? I would like to have all day games before 1935.

[Imperialism32]

Originally Posted by JaBurns

In generated fictional schedule is there a way to have all games start at the same time? I would like to have all day games before 1935.

You could grab the lsdl file and manually change the start times. Or if you let me know your league structure I could work on it (tomorrow or Friday probably).

[JaBurns]

I have three 8 team leagues playing a 154 game schedule but thinking of expanding over time to 10 and 12 teams playing 162 games. I would like the schedule to rotate every year so it is not a carbon copy every year. That is why I generate a fictional schedule every year. Could you explain how I grab the lsdl file and modify the starting times? Is the lsdl file in my save league file somewhere? If it is easy to do for computer challenged individual then I would do it myself. Don’t like having night games when I know there were none, just part of my OCD.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by JaBurns

I have three 8 team leagues playing a 154 game schedule but thinking of expanding over time to 10 and 12 teams playing 162 games. I would like the schedule to rotate every year so it is not a carbon copy every year.

Bear in mind that OOTP rearranges teams within the set of games in the schedule. So, for example, say opening day contains four games. Every season, opening will have four games, but the teams matched up in those four games will be effectively randomized (within certain restrictions).

Originally Posted by JaBurns

Could you explain how I grab the lsdl file and modify the starting times?

The schedule files can be opened in Wordpad. From there you can just do some searching and replacing.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by JaBurns

I have three 8 team leagues playing a 154 game schedule but thinking of expanding over time to 10 and 12 teams playing 162 games. I would like the schedule to rotate every year so it is not a carbon copy every year. That is why I generate a fictional schedule every year. Could you explain how I grab the lsdl file and modify the starting times? Is the lsdl file in my save league file somewhere? If it is easy to do for computer challenged individual then I would do it myself. Don’t like having night games when I know there were none, just part of my OCD.

In a text editor (like Notepad in Windows):

1. Open the schedule file that you want to edit;
2. Go to the Edit drop-down menu and choose Replace (ctrl-H in Windows);
3. In the "Find What" window, type the time that you want to replace (e.g. 1905). In the "Replace With" window type the time that you want instead (e.g. 1500);
4. If you're confident that you've done that correctly, choose "Replace All." All of the old times will be replaced by your new times;
5. Some schedules have multiple start times - check the schedule to make sure you've replaced all of the night start times;
6. Select "Save As" under the File drop-down menu (if you want to save the original file), give it a new name, and save it to your schedules folder. Make sure you save it as an .lsdl file rather than as a .txt file.

If you're really confident in your computer skills, you can copy-and-paste the schedule into a spreadsheet program like Excel or Open Office. That way, you can select all of the starting times and replace them all at once.

[JaBurns]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Bear in mind that OOTP rearranges teams within the set of games in the schedule. So, for example, say opening day contains four games. Every season, opening will have four games, but the teams matched up in those four games will be effectively randomized (within certain restrictions).

This is fine as long as the teams therefore the schedule changes each year.

The schedule files can be opened in Wordpad. From there you can just do some searching and replacing.

I will try nothing ventured nothing gained.....

[JaBurns]

Is there a way to have double headers part of a fictional schedule? Am I missing a setting?

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by JaBurns

Is there a way to have double headers part of a fictional schedule? Am I missing a setting?

Do you mean with the in-game schedule creator? No, that can't schedule double-headers. You can edit one of those schedules to add double-headers. Simply schedule two games between the same opponents on the same day. Like so:

<GAME day="84" time="1200" away="2" home="1"/>
<GAME day="84" time="1500" away="2" home="1"/>
<GAME day="84" time="1000" away="6" home="7"/>
<GAME day="84" time="1500" away="7" home="6"/>
<GAME day="84" time="1200" away="8" home="4"/>
<GAME day="84" time="1500" away="8" home="4"/>
<GAME day="84" time="1200" away="5" home="3"/>
<GAME day="84" time="1500" away="5" home="3"/>