Prior to the first league schedule in 1877, member clubs scheduled their own matches by mutual arrangement, including championship games necessarily with member clubs, other games with members, and games with non-member clubs. During this era, there were a number of different leagues that would be deemed Major League. This account gives the length of the major league "championship season" schedule by league and year. In contrast, a 2008 AL Central division game between Detroit and the Chicago White Sox needed to be made up following the last day of the regular season because it played a part in the division race involving the White Sox and the Minnesota Twins. Because the teams were unable to reschedule a make-up date before the end of the season on October 2, and it did not affect the divisional race, the game was not rescheduled. For example, in 2016, the September 29 game between the Cleveland Indians and Detroit Tigers was originally cancelled due to rain. However, if two teams are scheduled to meet for the final time in the last two weeks of the season, and the game is cancelled, it may not be rescheduled if there is no impact on the divisional or wild card races. Note that rainouts and other cancellations are often rescheduled ad hoc during the season, sometimes as doubleheaders. Under this schedule, divisional games consist of one four-game and three three-game series (one each home and away), intraleague games consist of two three-game series, and the interleague games consist of two two-game series against the geographic rival, and a single three-game series against the other interleague opponents (home team alternates every year). Beginning in 2023, teams play a balanced schedule as follows: they play their 13 games against their four divisional opponents (52 games), six or seven games against the other ten teams in their own league (64 games), four games against one "geographic rival" from the other league and three games against the other 14 teams from the other league for 46 total interleague games. Depending on the length of the series, mid-week series games are usually scheduled between Monday and Thursday, while weekend games are scheduled between Thursday and Monday. Teams play one mid-week series and one weekend series per week. ![]() ![]() Due to travel concerns and the sheer number of games, pairs of teams are never scheduled to play single games against each other (except in the instance of making up a postponed game, or more rarely, a one-game playoff to determine a postseason berth) instead they play games on several consecutive days in the same ballpark. ![]() ![]() The regular season is constructed from series. It is possible for a given team to play a maximum of 22 games in the postseason in a given year, provided the team is a wild card and advances to each of the Division Series, Championship Series, and World Series with each series going the distance (3 games in the Wild Card series, 5 games in the Division Series, 7 games each in the League Championship Series/World Series). One or more International Opener games may be scheduled outside the United States or Canada before the official Opening Day. The season begins with the official Opening Day, and, as of 2018, runs 26½ weeks through the last Sunday of September or first Sunday of October. The regular season runs from late March/early April to late September/early October, followed by the postseason which can run to early November. The Major League Baseball (MLB) season schedule generally consists of 162 games for each of the 30 teams in the American League (AL) and National League (NL), played over approximately six months – a total of 2,430 games, plus the postseason.
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