Why in the name of Cthulhu are self-professed baseball fans arguing in favor of less baseball? "waaahhh, mista Manfred, I can't recover in this nice charter flight before my 5-hour-a-day job standing around an outfield!" Never thought I'd see the day. Hey, look, speed junkies are claiming they need their speed! No one could have anticipated THAT plot twist!
Okay, fine then - start the season a week earlier, biasing venues towards warmer climates for the first few weeks, balanced out by a preference for northern cities in the heat of the summer. Seven more offdays in the season. Schedule some doubleheaders if need be, the customers will be just as happy to pay to see 2/3s of a team play 2/3s of a team twice a day. Just not often enough to make a farce out of 25-man rosters.
But cut the nostalgic crap for 154-game seasons, as if that number was handed down on stone tablets. If the current season was 180 games, they'd be arguing that 170 was just perfect. If they were playing 154 games today, the MLBPA would be saying that's too much for the rigors required of a modern training regimen and it really ought to be 140. They're a union, they're negotiating a CBA, they need leverage chips for a multi-pronged agreement. All well and good, but sophisticated fans ought to see that for what it is, and not buy in so readily to the idea that players could play 162 game seasons every year since 1961 but suddenly find themselves overwhelmed by the demands of a 19th-century pastoral game. Let's root, root root for more baseball being played. Or at least no less.