Baseball needs to re-think its scheduling practice

I meant to write this a while back but I didn't want to over shadow the events that lead to my last two posts.

Now that the baseball season (both Major and Minor leagues) are starting earlier and earlier, they need to rethink the idea of having cities in the northeast host games in the early season.

Those of us who live in the northeast (I'm in Rochester, NY) know that weather is, at best, unpredictable.

It doesn't seem to be as much of a problem for the majors, since they have larger travel budgets and multiple trips to each city (except for the inter-league games, which don't occur in early April).

Why is it that the southern and western teams consistently travel to the colder climbs to open the season. Who was the brainiac who sent the L.A. Angels of Anaheim to open the season in Cleveland, OH? With several feet of snow on the field, the games were moved to Milwaukee, WI, into their domed stadium. (did anyone else notice that the games were moved to the home stadium of the team owned by the sister of the commissioner?)

Now I understand that the southern teams don't want to lose home game dates in the summer when more people are likely to attend, as opposed to the days that schools are still in session.

What becomes unfair, is now that the Rochester Red Wings of the International League (an AAA League) will lose 3 home games this year because of bad weather. Since the teams involved, aren't scheduled to make another trip to the Flower City, the games will be made up when the Red Wings travel south later this summer.

To make matters worse, in the make-up games, the Wings won't even get the benefit of last ups in these games.

Now is the time to make the change. If the season isn't going to start later in the year, than have the first 2 weeks take place in southern and western cities, or cities that have domed stadiums. Would you rather sit at the stands of a game in August in South Carolina, or in Rochester?

Or, here's a novel idea.. how about going back to playing more double-headers? That would allow the season to start later, but not shorten the number of games (which might not be a bad idea either..).

Play ball!