Notice: Trying to get property 'display_name' of non-object in /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-seo/src/generators/schema/article.php on line 52
keyboard_arrow_uptop

Happy Wednesday.

It’s a pairing of words you don’t see often in the indoor world where people talk about hump day and humpin’ and getting over the hump and leveraging synergies. Don’t listen to that world. Those people are idiots.

Wednesday, whose need for a makeover in the real world ranks second only to Monday, is without much question in my mind, the best baseball day of the week. Now it helps that I don’t have a single toe in that 9-to-5 world. (This is the only 9-to-5 I recognize.) The other bias I must point out is that it’s the perspective of someone who wants to follow all games, not just a local team’s, and has the MLB package, so your list might look a little different.

But I think everybody can find something to love about Wednesday. Just look at today’s game times, presented from the time zonal perspective of an East Coaster, who will basically be able to see continuous baseball for 13 hours from noon to 1 a.m.

12:10
1:05
1:05
2:10
3:40
3:45
7:00
7:05
7:05
7:08
7:10
8:10
8:10
8:15
10:10

A perfect day for marathon baseball watching and following, Wednesday bats leadoff in my lineup of the best days of the baseball week.

1. Wednesday

For one thing, everybody plays, which when you’re looking for the best baseball day of the week rules out Mondays and Thursdays right away. And there are games throughout the day, separating this from Tuesday and Friday, which are almost exclusively night games. You don’t need the MLB package to think this is an edge, you just need to desire baseball happenings throughout the day even for fantasy or just news-following purposes. While Saturday is marred by the growing list of Fox games and thus regional blackouts and odd scheduling, and while Sunday crams all the games into early timeslots, Wednesday is a perfect steady drip of baseball with some teams on getaway day from Monday-Wednesday series and others doing their regular weekday night thing.
Most important baseball event on a Wednesday: Youppi! was ejected from a game at Tommy Lasorda’s request (8/23/89)

2. Friday

It’s not an ideal distribution of games, though it’s much better on the essentially alternate Fridays when the Cubs provide a festive 1:20 Chicago Time prelude to the weekend. (Please don’t take this away in the new TV deal.) But the great thing about Friday is that not only is everybody playing, but it’s also the day of the week with the most new series starting. So it’s a fresh look at a club you haven’t seen yet this year or the renewal of a big rivalry that will get Saturday and Sunday’s top billing. Plus it’s often fireworks night, and who doesn’t like that?
Most important baseball event on a Friday: Lee Elia explained the economics of Chicago (4/29/83)

3. Saturday

It’s really unfortunate that Saturday isn’t first on the list. The live experience on a Saturday, especially at a downtown ballpark with things to do after the game, is the best there is. But the television experience of Saturday is getting worse. When Fox started cramming five games into its timeslot and going hyper-regional, it can lead to a frustrating three hours for the blacked out television consumer and the placement of other games in strange timeslots to circumvent the TV rules. Here’s hoping in a few years, this will go to its rightful place atop the ranking.
Most important baseball event on a Saturday: Chan Ho Park kicked Tim Belcher during a fight (6/5/99)

4. Sunday

Fun fact: There have been more perfect games thrown on Sundays than on any other day of the week. Seven of the 23 have come on Sundays, compared to five on Thursdays, three on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays and one each on Monday and Tuesday. This isn’t really surprising. Sunday is the only day that serves as a namesake for an intentionally bad lineup, which pushes it down the list a little bit with so many day games after night games. The fact that there’s one stand-alone game at night can be frustrating if it’s bad but also fun in the Twitter era to have the whole world watching just one game.
Most important baseball event on a Sunday: Mariano Rivera drew a bases-loaded walk against the Mets (6/28/09)

5. Tuesday

Tuesday is the day when we really earn what we feel sets us apart as baseball people. Any sport can do an event culture and Tuesday is hardly an event. The NFL doesn’t even play on Tuesday. There are no national games in baseball on Tuesday, no matinees either. Tuesday is a grind on the way to 162. Every team plays every Tuesday, some starting new series, some playing to small crowds for the second night in a row in already ongoing series. Tuesday’s lone reward for being so predictable is the All-Star Game, so don’t screw that up.
Most important baseball event on a Tuesday: Rick Monday was born (11/20/45)

6. Thursday

Thursday is Wednesday lite, and unfortunately, the imitation isn’t quite the original. All that’s missing is a full schedule, as we had a Thursday recently with five games with most teams off to travel for weekend series. So just not enough baseball. Be glad when we have the draft this Thursday.
Most important baseball event on a Thursday: The Washington Senators forfeited their last game due to a fan riot (9/30/71)

7. Monday

Here’s where the office ranking and the baseball ranking finally come together. Monday is the worst. There are more off-days on Mondays than any other, and when there’s that rare wraparound series that could give us a day game, teams will often go out of their way to schedule at night. (The Astros had to play in Anaheim at night this past Monday, meaning they arrived home two time zones east at 5 a.m.) And if Monday weren’t already the bleakest on the baseball calendar, it’s also the home run derby.
Most important baseball event on a Monday: Duane Kuiper hit his one career home run (8/29/77)

If this list has a flaw, it’s probably too much designed around the MLB package and not enough around the rhythms of the real world. How would your ranking differ?

Thank you for reading

This is a free article. If you enjoyed it, consider subscribing to Baseball Prospectus. Subscriptions support ongoing public baseball research and analysis in an increasingly proprietary environment.

Subscribe now
You need to be logged in to comment. Login or Subscribe
jmanig78
6/05
1. Since I don't see the city of Chicago allowing Wrigley Field to have Friday night games anytime soon, the 1:20 day game is probably not going anywhere

2. Your Saturday nightmares will most likely be over next year, when the majority of the FOX contract moves to FOX Sports One, which will have a single non-blackout national game.

3. I LOL'd at Rick Monday being born on a Tuesday. That's probably the first and last time anything Rick Monday related will make me laugh (Expos fan).
lyricalkiller
6/05
Wednesday is certainly no. 1. You built a lot of goodwill with me by having Wednesday no. 1. My points of dispute:

Tuesday is worse than Thursday. Thursday sucks for the short schedule but it's often not noticeably short, and it's *always* a well dispersed schedule with early day games. That is, to me, the primary question in ranking days. Tuesday never has day games. Tuesdays the worst, except Mondays, which are only saved by the very occasional wraparound-series getaway day or the rescheduled-rainout day games and the extremely occasional Patriots Day game.

Saturday is worse than Sunday. Saturday might be worse than Thursday, but I acknowledge that's a matter of taste. Saturday is basically the only day of the week in which there are baseball games that I can't watch. This is infuriating. If the Saturday game of the week sucks or turns into a blowout, there is literally no good baseball to watch from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., otherwise known as the three hours of the week when there should by rights be the most good baseball to watch. Furthermore, because of this silliness, teams load their schedules with night games so that, while I'm weeding my garden on a friggin Saturday afternooon, I can't listen to my local team play on the radio. It's just so obvious that this is wrong.

Sunday seems like a flawed day because action ends so early, but the Sunday Night Game is the only game of the week that all of us watch at the same time, which has a lot of charm, and it's usually a great game worth looking forward to. And the incredible flood of 10 a.m. games is so welcome considering how many of our H2H leagues are hinging on that day's action.

Monday the worst.

So I submit:

1. Wednesday
2. Sunday
3. Friday
4. Thursday
5. Saturday
6. Tuesday
7. Monday
sporer24
6/05
Strong stuff regarding Saturday. Very strong. Blackouts are the worst.

However, I disagree re: Thursday not being noticeably short. It's just as short as Monday. In fact from here on out, Thursdays average 10.38 to Mondays 10.44 games per day with there being 10 Mondays of 10+ games left compared to just 9 Thursdays of a double-digit slate.

I don't feel the Tuesday hate, either. Constant full slates that *feel* even fuller after off-day Mondays bring forth plenty of action packed nights early in the work week. Tuesday offers a full slate and while it is compacted, you're not blacked out of any of it, so I'd give it the nod over Saturday for sure. The Thursday afternoon game certainty helps it stay atop Tuesday as you're able to watch more full games without missing a ton.

Thus: We-Fr-Su-Th-Tu-Sa-Mo
riverz
6/05
I liked this article a lot and agree with most of what both Zach and Sam said. I don't have a TV which means I don't have cable, which means I get all my baseball via mlb.tv. So Saturday afternoon sucks and I don't get the Sunday night game on ESPN (they used to broadcast it on ESPN3 online but now you only get it if you already have a cable subscription, which is lame).

But I do love Sunday afternoon baseball a lot, and I love coming home from work on Sunday (I'm a pastor so on Sunday afternoons I'm wiped out) and parking myself in front of a baseball game.

So my favored order is:
1. Wednesday
2. Friday
3. Sunday
4. Tuesday
5. Saturday (this one will move way up once Fox stops their lousy blackouts)
6. Thursday
7. Monday
kddean
6/05
The conclusion I've drawn from this is that everyone is Garfield.
fredlummis
6/06
I like Sundays. I have a real job that precludes baseball watching during weekdays, so Sundays are my best chance for day baseball. 2 national TV games plus your local broadcast and great crowds at the ballpark make Sunday great in my book. I also play weekly H2H fantasy baseball, which greatly raises the importance of Sunday action.
brucegilsen
6/07
The title of this article should have been, "I Don't Like Mondays".