Baseball must go back to Square One when it comes to schedule-making.

            The present system simply does not work. If baseball wants to think “green,” sending teams 2,000 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles for a three-game series, then back to the Windy City, is an egregious waste of costly jet fuel, not to mention a huge physical drag on the Chicago White Sox, the cannon fodder in such barbaric scheduling.

            The Sox flew after a day game Thursday, arriving at midnight in Chicago before playing a 3:05 p.m. game Friday against the Cubs at U.S. Cellular Field.

            Whatever happened to the old-school “West Coast swing,” when Eastern and Midwestern teams would play six or even nine games in LA, San Francisco and San Diego, or Oakland, Anaheim and maybe Seattle ?

            So many other teams have endured the one-and-done trips to the West Coast. There’s got to be a better way.

            Ditto with the energy-draining scheduling of a night game in one city with a  day game in another, almost 1,000 miles apart. That happened to the Cubs June 19-20. They played at Tampa Bay on a Thursday night, then hurried home as fast as possible for a 1:20 p.m. date against the White Sox on Friday at Wrigley Field. There were no extra innings or storm delays, so the Cubs flight got in at 1:30 a.m. Chicago time. The player were able to get about six hours’ sleep.

            There is a major-league rule permitting this near-atrocity, in which tired players may not put forth their best effort, through no fault of their own, for customers paying $40 or $50 per ticket. Teams can fly from a night game to a day game in another city provided the time spent in the air (not counting taxiing time to and from airport terminals) does not exceed 90 minutes.

But an exemption is made for travel to Chicago . That air-time is extended to 2 ½ hours – just under the flight time from Tampa -- since the Cubs are prohibited from playing night games on Fridays. The club owners near Wrigley Field protected their interests when they did horse-trading to allow an increase from 18 to 30 night games at the Friendly Confines.

At least once a season the Cubs are caught in the Thursday night-on-the-road/Friday-at-home bind, but usually never on such a longer flight as from Tampa Bay . No wonder Cubs chairman Crane Kenney wants a revision in the law to allow Friday night games at Wrigley Field.

Travel is tough enough on players’ body clocks without crazy-quilt scheduling. The sleep research center at Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville, Va. , did a study covering 10 seasons, starting in 1997, on how teams traveling through all the time zones might have a disadvantage because their body clocks are out of whack.

The problems can be most pronounced if a team loses three time zones going from New York to Los Angeles , factoring in either the Dodgers or Angels having already adjusted to their own time zone in a homestand. All those instances of Eastern or Midwest teams having trouble scoring one or two runs in their first or second games on the West Coast was not an aberration or statistical fluke. The visiting teams were out of whack with their body schedules when peak athletic performance was needed.

When teams held a one-hour “circadian” (“circadian rhythm, or body clock) advantage, winning percentage was .517. (1904-1782).  Winning percentage with a two-hour advantage was .517 (620-579) and .602 (97-64) with a three-hour advantage.

OK, in the end practicality has to win out. It’s impossible to have a satisfactory schedule for all with 30 games playing 162 games each. But schedule-making is getting worse, not better. All those teams, even those with sparkling overall records, stumbling on the road this year is a great indicator.

Please check into this, Bud, when you’re done with your video replay project.