Orleans on the baseball schedule

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I got an email Tuesday night from Jeff Orleans, executive director of the Ivy League, wanting to talk about my column from Tuesday about the Ivy League baseball schedule.

At first I thought that I was getting called into the proverbial principal's office to hear a lecture about Ivy League rules, the principles of education and why the Ancient Eight is not a big-time athletic conference. But that's not what happened at all. Really, I should have given Orleans more credit -- he is very fair-minded and explains himself well. So here's what he told me:

The reason the Ivy League baseball schedule ends as early as it does is the fact that there is a rule against playing any sport during finals. I may not agree with this rule, which Orleans says has existed "since the beginning of time," but I understand why it is in place and it's pretty clear that this is never changing.

The current league schedule goes right up until exams for Penn and Yale, and the reason Penn is travel partners with Columbia rather than Princeton for baseball is the fact that Penn's and Columbia's finals (and spring breaks) are earlier than Princeton's and Cornell's.

In fact, Princeton and Cornell were still on break last weekend. So while Orleans admitted that "Everyone would say we'd rather play baseball in May rather than March," his hands are pretty much tied. Thirty years ago, when the academic calendars stretched later into May, the baseball season was also longer, Orleans said.

Orleans also said that there has been talk of expanding the roster limit for road trips from its current 20 or 22 (depending on the length of the trip). This way, teams will not be forced to use position players to pitch during the middle of the week, like Penn has had to do recently.

As for changing the schedule to Friday-Sunday format, Orleans said that the League is relunctant to add another day of travel for teams, and that the schedule for all sports are based around the least amount of travel possible to avoid missing classes and other disruptions.

So, it looks like the schedule can't be fixed unless all the schools move their finals back, which will probably never happen (and certainly won't happen just for baseball). However, I have one idea that could work.

First, I think if the schedule worked, the schools would play three-game sets Friday through Sunday like most other schools, because it's less taxing on the coaches and the extra travel wouldn't really be any more than for a basketball or football weekend -- maybe just one extra day on the weekend (and this would only be three or four weekends during the year).

Then, the schedule would have to be built around the schools' academic calendar, like the Ivy championship series is.

Using this year's schedules as an example, here's what I would come up with. (The NCAA Tournament starts June 2, so the season would have to be over before then)

March 24-26
Penn vs. Columbia

March 31-April 2
Penn vs. Harvard
Brown vs. Dartmouth
Columbia vs. Cornell
Princeton vs. Yale

April 7-9
Penn vs. Dartmouth
Brown vs. Princeton
Columbia vs. Harvard
Cornell vs. Yale

April 14-16
Brown vs. Harvard
Columbia vs. Princeton
Cornell vs. Penn
Dartmouth vs. Yale

April 21-23
Brown vs. Yale
Cornell vs. Dartmouth
Penn vs. Princeton

April 28-30
Brown vs. Columbia
Princeton vs. Cornell
Harvard vs. Yale

May 5-7
Dartmouth vs. Harvard
Cornell vs. Brown

May 12-14
Penn vs. Yale
Dartmouth vs. Columbia
Harvard vs. Princeton

May 19-21
Penn vs. Brown
Columbia vs. Yale
Dartmouth vs. Princeton

May 26-28
Cornell vs. Harvard

And the Ivy championship series can be May 30-31 (or the weekend of Cornell-Harvard if their series doesn't matter)

So, Mr. Orleans, if you read this, it can be done. I don't think playing past school matters -- it certainly hasn't affected other schools in the baseball tournament, although maybe commencements would be an issue, but that is for another day.