why 162 games?

Major League Baseball plays a long season of 162 games.  So how did they arrive at that number?

Prior to expansion that occurred in the early 1960's, there were 8 baseball teams in each of the American and National League.  Each team played the other 7 teams 22 games a piece, which made for a season of 154 games.

When the American League expanded with two more teams for the 1961 season, it meant that the new American League would have 10 teams, meaning there were now 9 opponents.  The American League would need to find a new amount of times that each team would play each other that would be close to the number of games they had been playing previously.  If each team played each other 18 times, that would mean the season would consist of 162 games.  That number of 162 has been used for the past 50 years.

Yankee Roger Maris was the beneficiary of a longer season

Ironically, 1961 was the year that Roger Maris would break the home run record for homers in a season with 61, which sparked controversy because he needed the additional 8 games to break Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs accomplished in a154-game season.