Once again it doesn’t matter much to Tigers fans, but the Major League Baseball season goes on too long. It’s not good for the game. Baseball is not a winter sport.

With the best-of-7 League Championship Series just getting under way, this year’s World Series isn’t even scheduled to begin until Oct. 28.

Granted, it may be an all southern-California affair if the Dodgers and Angels meet, but it also could be played in the chilly northeast between Philadelphia and New York. The other possible combinations could see teams playing in 30-degree weather one night, 75 the next.

With temperatures around here dipping into the 30s, wonder how it would feel to catch a 90-mile-an-hour fastball on the handle of a Louisville Slugger tonight at Comerica Park ... Too bad the Tigers' hitters didn't get to find out.

Of the 30 Major League teams, just 9 play in climates that can be expected to be consistently favorable into late October; 11 if you count San Francisco and Oakland, but Bay Area weather is unpredictable almost any time.

North of the Mason-Dixon line, only three stadiums have roofs — Seattle, Toronto and Milwaukee. So chances are pretty good that some part of the post-season action is going to come with a risk of frostbite.

Snow delayed one playoff game this year in Denver and has fallen once on the World Series, in Cleveland in 1997. But you don’t need the white stuff for the weather to be a factor.

Even with today’s high-tech underwear, pitching, hitting and fielding in near-freezing conditions can be an adventure, not to mention the discomfort experienced by fans paying top dollar for tickets.

You expect to deal with the weather in football. Teams can adjust for it. Hockey has the good sense to go indoors. How do you adjust in baseball, other than bundle up? (On the upside, this will probably keep metal bats out of the big leagues forever.) In a game that involves a lot of standing around waiting to move quickly when a ball is hit, can fans really expect to see the players at their best when they’re literally chillin’ in the field or huddling around heaters in the dugout for most of the three or more hours it usually takes to complete nine innings?

Furthermore, running baseball's premier events this late in the year only increases the competition for fan attention, ticket money and TV audiences with football, which now seems to have a game somewhere every night, basketball and hockey.

What’s the answer?

Shorten the season, which was stretched to 162 games in the early 1960s. Lets’ face it, most teams are out of the pennant races after 100 games anyway.

If Major League Baseball insists on a 162-game season, play more old-fashioned doubleheaders. Get the playoffs underway by mid-September and make the “October Classic” and “early October Classic.”

Better for the players, fans and for the game.