The Pirates finished in the top half of the league for attendance in the past year almost drawing 2.6 Million. They are the first game of the Season slated to be played. ESPN and MLB have announced at least 3 games for the opening Sunday date of Apr.2, 2015. and 4 more games will be televised on the Monday..

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Baseball is really starting to get the picture in some regards.  Today it was announced that the league will open with three games on the first Sunday of the season.

The Pirates will host the Cardinals at 1:05 PM EST

The Rays will host the Jays at 4:05 PM EST

Finally, there will be a World Series rematch for the ESPN SUNDAY NIGHT GAME at Kauffman Stadium between the World Champion Royals and the Mets.

Kauffman Stadium will host a World Series rematch on the first ESPN Sunday Night Game of the year between the Mets and Royals. It is a lucky event as these teams only play about once every 3 years and double that for this specific venue.  New York will have to watch the Kansas City club and their fans celebrate their win – and receive their rings. 

This scheduling quirk is an incredible bit of good luck for the MLB considering they did they released the forthcoming season schedule in early September.

I would have loved to have 3 different teams start a game at home on the first Sunday last season.  Don’t get me wrong, the MLB Season Opener at Wrigley was fantastic, it was just that I was pigeon holed to see that contest because there were no other alternatives.

This opens up the idea of having this happen every year.  I love it.  ESPN also announced that it will carry 4 more games on broadcast for Monday, April 4th.

On the schedule at MLB.com they also have the Cubs at the Angels listed on the Sunday as a TBD, however there is conflicting reports on whether that would be the Angel Stadium home opener.  Personally that may have been a better game to have at 4:05 PM EST than the Rays hosting the Jays.

Don’t forget that the MLB Reports will have great 2016 MLB schedule coverage including weekly, monthly and yearly pages dedicated to all 2430 Games this season.

ALL 2430 Games on one page post right here

ALL 300 MLB Interleague Games and Results, right here

ALL Games in MLB April 2016 Schedule, right here

ALL Games in MLB May 2016 Schedule, right here

ALL Games in MLB June 2016 Schedule, right here

ALL Games in MLB July 2016 Schedule, right here

ALL Games in MLB Aug 2016 Schedule, right here

ALL Games in MLB Sept/Oct 2016 Schedule, right here

All 30 MLB Park Home Opener Dates And Times, right here

In addition to this, we have our Interleague Master Schedule Page with full results, and in February I will write the Doubleheaders Master schedule for the 2016 year.  I will limit the availability to seeing two games by means of land.

I will write another proposed schedule to try to break the Land World Record of “30 MLB Parks in 26 Days” – and I am going to scour the schedule to see if there is a chance to best my “All 30 MLB Parks in 23 Calendar Days” record.

At some point in February, I will mock a schedule up to see what I would have done if the MLB sponsored me on another year long journey like I did in 2015.

Next year we will always bring back MLB Run Scoring Survivor, where we will check off every team scoring from 0 – 10 runs (11 different variations in all) one by one until we see who is the first and last team to carry out that mission.

MLB Shutout Survivor also will be back  for a 3rd year.  Sully’s ‘Who Owned Baseball” returns for a 4th year. We also will have other podcast personalities back from previous years – to keep you all entertained.

The MLB Reports will continue a heavy look at all the teams payrolls and previews.  We will be doing weekly power rankings as well.

Finally two new things we have coming are a weekly historical Tommy John Surgery player, and we are trying to bring a couple of people to do daily fantasy baseball blogs.

Other things we do are updating the Recent No-Hitters and cycles for each franchise as well.  In the off season I will also update my top 50 contracts of ALL-Time.

Of course Sully is into his 4th straight year of doing a daily 20 minute podcast every single day (ironman streak) – and will even do an extra show in 2016 because it is a leap year.

We have you covered here at the MLB Reports.

*** The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of mlbreports.com and their partners***

I am happy to be back at the helm of the MLB Reports, after completing my record 224 Games in the MLB Trip in 2015.  It was the 5th time I have seen all 30 MLB Parks since 2008. 

During that time away I was fortunate to do 100 Media Interviews and be named the Baseball Blogger Alliance President.

Interview on CSN Philly during the month of July.

To Subscribe and listen daily to  ‘Our Lead Personality’  Sully’s 20 Minutes Daily (every day since Oct.24, 2012) Podcast click here.  Guaranteed listening to the Sully Baseball Daily Podcast will be the best time you invest in online!

2016 MLB Previews: Team Salaries + SOTUs (MLB Teams State Of The Unions) Links Page here.