It’s great to see the sentiment, nationwide, after the passing of Cubs legend Ernie Banks.  He was a great man, a great athlete and for a product of the Negro Leagues, who came to the Cubs in the 1950’s to spend more than 60 years as the face of the franchise is beyond impressive.

But let’s knock it off with the doubleheader crap, can we?

Ernie’s most famous phrase was, “It’s a beautiful day for baseball, let’s play two!”

You know why he said it?  Because 13 of the 19 Cubs teams he played on were so terrible the only chance they had of getting a win on any given day was to take two cracks at it.

Doubleheaders are a product of baseball’s century long attempt to cram 20 pounds of games into ten pound bag.  Back when teams had to rely on train travel there was no way to play a game a day and finish the season before the next one started, so they played doubleheaders every week.  Have a rain out?  Play another doubleheader!

Attendance sucked pretty much everywhere so giving away a gate here or there was no big deal.

It’s not that I’m opposed to more baseball, or especially to making whiny sportswriters work longer hours.  It’s just that one game a day seems like enough.  Especially since when we do get the rare doubleheader these days it’s almost always a “split” doubleheader.  It’s not like the old days when the first game finished and a half hour later they played game two.  Now, they start game one at 11 in the morning, kick everybody out of the park after the game, wait a few hours and start all over.  Ooh, isn’t that fun!

The idea that baseball should have an Ernie Banks Day and have every team play doubleheaders is very nice, and completely pointless.  The idea that the Cubs should always play a doubleheader on the anniversary of Ernie’s first appearance for the team is better, but still not that great.

You know how best baseball could honor Ernie Banks?  How about for three hours one day, every year they just not act like assholes?  How about for three hours they play the game like it’s fun?  How about they enjoy themselves, or at least pretend to?  Making baseball seem more like a game than a corporate sponsored physical chore would be a great place to start.

Ernie is one of the very few things the Chicago Cubs have in their legacy that they can be unabashedly proud of.  To honor him, maybe baseball could take a cue from him, pull the stick out of their asses and loosen up?

Baseball’s supposed to be fun.  Fun to play and fun to watch.  Ernie got that better than anybody before him or since.

There’s no way baseball can fake that for two games in a single day.

I’ll take nine innings of that once a year, and consider it a monumental step towards truly honoring one of baseball’s true immortals.