What Months Are Baseball Season? (Answered In Detail)
Paul Hall
A very long season is one of the main things that sets baseball apart from other major sports.
Each MLB team gets to play 162 games every season, not counting spring training and playoffs.
While this may seem like too much, avid baseball fans are certainly happy that they get to enjoy their favorite game for the better part of the year.
What makes it even more enjoyable is that baseball is mostly played during spring or summer, so fans can combine the excitement of a game with a nice outing on a sunny day.
Other baseball competitions, including college, high school, Little League, and various amateur leagues are also predominantly played in the warm weather, even though they don’t feature that high number of games.
For those who are not die-hard baseball fans, I’ll look at all levels of competition and explain what months are baseball season.
Table of Contents
What Months Are Baseball Season?
In Major League Baseball, the regular season is, generally, 6 months long and will commonly last from April to September.
Occasionally, the season will start a bit earlier in late March or end a bit later, spilling into the start of October.
All 162 games are spread across this time frame, meaning that players go out to the field nearly daily.
The only time of the week when they get a day or two off is usually between different series and that time is often reserved for travel.
From time to time, teams will even play extra games on the same day, either as a part of a scheduled double-header or due to the rain delay from the day before.
The schedule gets particularly condensed in August and September, as that’s the time the league uses to make up for the games that were called off earlier in the season.
When Does Baseball Postseason Take Place?
In the MLB, the postseason usually starts right after the regular season, with only a few days in between.
This means that the first game of the playoffs is commonly played during the first week of October.
The postseason, in most years, lasts until early November. From 2022, the MLB postseason features 12 teams, 6 from each league.
The top two division winners progress automatically to the division series, while the rest of the teams play a best-of-three Wild Card round.
The winners move to the best-of-five Division Series (LDS) where they face the two best-seeded division winners.
Teams that come out of this stage progress to the League Championship Series (LCS).
Finally, the best teams from the American League Championship Series (ALCS) and the National League Championship Series (NLCS) square off in the World Series.
The maximum number of postseason games is 53, while the minimum is 32.
When Is Spring Training?
Even though competitive MLB baseball usually runs from early April to early November, the games start before those dates.
The MLB preseason, or Spring Training, precedes the regular season and commonly begins in mid-February and lasts until the last week of March or just a couple of days before Opening Day.
During Spring training, each team plays around 30 training games. Besides exhibition games, teams also use this period for a series of practices.
Spring Training offers a chance for new players to fight for roster spots and provide practice time for established players before the real thing starts.
No matter what league they’re in, MLB clubs play their practice games against teams who have their Spring Training in the same state.
One group of teams trains in Arizona and forms the Cactus League, while those stationed in Florida take part in the Grapefruit League.
Is There Any Baseball Played During Fall Or Winter?
As you can see, baseball pros play most of their games during spring or summer. However, this doesn’t mean that baseball completely stops during colder months.
Some of you may be familiar with the term “winter ball” which refers to leagues, mostly for young players, that play their games in the fall or even spill into the winter.
The start of these leagues commonly coincides with the end of the minor-league season in early September and the games are usually played into early November.
For this reason, some call these leagues “fall ball”. The best-known among these leagues was probably the Arizona Winter League.
It was the league affiliated with the MLB and involved six teams, usually packed with players from different Major League organizations.
Leagues like this provide an opportunity for young players to show their parent team that they’re worthy of a roster spot.
What Months Are Baseball Season Outside The US?
Of course, baseball is not only played in the United States.
It’s becoming more and more popular around the world, so there’s baseball being played somewhere around the globe at almost any time.
Here’s some information on when is the baseball season in some of the most prominent non-US leagues.
Latin America And Caribbean Leagues
Latin America and the Caribbean are among the spots on the world map where baseball is most popular, as is obvious by the numbers of MLB players coming from these regions.
Countries like Venezuela, Panama, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic feature several high-profile baseball leagues.
As the climate there is much warmer than in the US, baseball starts much later in the year to avoid extreme heat.
Most of these leagues take place in the fall or even early winter (typically from October to December).
The winners of these leagues compete against each other every year in February in the Caribbean World Series.
Asian Leagues
In terms of organizational level, popularity, and league structures, no leagues resemble the MLB more than those played in a couple of Asian countries, such as Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan.
Japanese Nippon Professional Baseball is likely the furthest ahead and is already a serious competitor to the MLB.
The NLP features two leagues, the Central and the Pacific League, similar to AL and NL in the MLB.
The season, just like in the US, starts in late March or early April and runs until October. The best teams from each league compete in the playoff tournament called Nippon Series.
The KBO league in South Korea is the highest level of baseball in the country and the most popular Korean sports league.
The season typically runs from early April into late September,
The third notable Asian league, the Taiwan Major League, stages its matches from mid-March and ends the season in November.
College And High School Baseball
Baseball seasons in collegiate, high school, and youth leagues commonly have similar timing to the Major League, with the difference that they usually start and end a bit earlier.
Understandably, players at this level don’t play as many games as those competing in the professional leagues.
How Long Does A College Baseball Season Last?
The 2022 NCAA Division I baseball season, the highest level of collegiate baseball, usually starts in mid-February, for example, the 2022 season kicked off on February 18.
During the season, as the play progresses, there are various conference tournaments and championship series.
The season culminates in June with the NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament and Men’s College World Series.
The Men’s College World Series is held every year in Omaha, Nebraska, and features eight remaining teams from the NCAA tournament.
How Long Does A High-School Baseball Season Last?
High-school baseball season is, of course, much shorter than those involving older players.
Each state has its own rules determining how many games a high school player is allowed to play during a single season.
Because of this, the length of a season can vary depending on which part of the country is the league played in.
However, the rules usually don’t differ that much from state to state. Most of them allow teams to play 25-40 games in a regular season.
In most cases, high school baseball leagues start in March and end in June. Commonly, high school teams play on a very condensed schedule, with 3 to 5 games per week.
The season starts earlier in southern states with warmer climates such as Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Florida, or Mississippi.
The latest high school teams are allowed to play is in Wisconsin, where the season ends on July 1.
Conclusion
With 30 Spring Training games, 162 played during the regular season, and potentially another 22 in the playoffs, the year of baseball players is probably the most grueling of any of their counterparts in other sports.
However, the number of games that high makes sure that good teams are separated from the bad and allows baseball to get a healthy dose of their favorite sport.
Despite the long season, the silver lining for baseball players is that, at least, they get to play their games in fair weather most of the time.
No matter part of the world or level of competition, baseball is played during warm months.
In the US, this means that baseball commonly starts in early spring and goes on until late summer or early fall.
