I don't think we'll ever see scheduled double-headers again. The "modern" player is all about one game a day, and managers would probably go nuts because it would screw up their beloved 5-man rotation with everybody getting 4 days' rest. Think about it...every time a team has to play a DH due to a rainout, all you hear about is how it screws up the pitching schedule. And whether we like it or not, if the players and managers are against it, it ain't gonna happen.

I'm also for shortening the schedule, but it'll never happen either. The owners will always go back to the revenue loss. It's unfortunate, because I agree that the 162-game schedule is ridiculously long.

I think a shorter and more-structured schedule would be ideal. Play a 126-game schedule, 63 home and 63 away. You play 6 games per week, always Friday through Wednesday with Thursday as a universal weekly off day for travel and/or easy make-up dates. (No more struggles to find a mutual off day when a game gets rained out.) Generally stick to all 6 being home or away in a given week, but you can do home-and-home sets for geographically close teams.

Find Labor Day weekend on the calendar, and backtrack 21 weeks. That's your opening day weekend. End the regular season on the Wednesday before Labor Day, and keep that Thursday and Friday open for potential make-up and play-in games. Start the playoffs on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, which would mean the World Series should start about 3 weeks after that.

This year, with Labor Day the earliest it can possibly be, you would've had opening day weekend on April 4-6, the regular season finale on August 27, the playoff opener on August 30, and the World Series from about September 20-28. If you go to the other extreme with Labor Day at its latest possible date, you'd have opening day around April 10-12, the season finale around September 2, playoffs start September 5, and the World Series runs about September 26 through October 4.

If you forget about lost revenue and just do what makes sense, it ain't rocket science...