Gas up the bus

The Wild Things begin their longest road trip of the season tonight. It's a nine-game journey that will take them to Avon, Ohio, Florence, Ky., and London, Ontario. Included in the trip is an absolute ridiculous scenario of a night game Saturday in Florence followed by a 398-mile overnight trip to London, which will include a stop of about an hour to go through customs at the U.S.-Canada border, and then a 1 p.m. game Sunday in London. Think about that for a moment, a day game after a night game, with a 398-mile bus trip, and a stop at the border.

Can you say bad scheduling?

We've already seen some puzzling scheduling this year in the Frontier League. London played a series finale in O'Fallon, Mo., then made the league's longest trip, 701 miles, back to Canada for its season opener the next day against Gateway. To the Rippers' credit, they didn't let the travel become an excuse because they beat the Grizzlies that night. Rumor has it that Gateway, which was traveling from Washington to London, was delayed an extra hour at the border because the Grizzlies had faxed their paperwork to a different crossing station.

We've also had River City driving to Washington for a three-game series, then turning around and going back home to Missouri for a home series the next night. Normal just concluded a 12-game road trip with a series in Washington.

It seems that every team that has rolled into Washington has at least one complaint about its travel schedule. This sparked a Sunday night project for me as I watched the Kent State-Oregon college baseball Super Regional game: find out which Frontier League teams have the best and worst travel schedules this year.

The team that has the biggest complaint is (drum roll, please) ... Washington.

I did not notice just how bad Washington's schedule is this year because it starts out (with the exception of the Florence-to-London night-day scenario) relatively easily. But Washington's travel schedule from July 31 until the six-game homestand to conclude the season is bad, bad, bad. The worst month of travel any team in the league will endure.

The late-season stretch includes:

* a trip from Avon, Ohio to O'Fallon, Mo., without an off day.
* a trip from O'Fallon, Mo., to Washington without an off day.
* three scheduled off days that will be used as travel days.
* trips from Washington to Normal, Ill., Sauget, Ill., and Rockford, Ill., with returns trips from Normal and Sauget for home games the following nights.

From the first series of the year until the final out of the regular season, Washington will travel more miles (11,345) than any team in the league. And this year, it's not so much that Washington is a perimeter team in the league, it's because of bad scheduling. For example, why send Washington, the Eastern-most team in the league, to St. Louis twice? One six-game trip, to play Gateway and River City, is what should be happening. Instead, Washington, London and Lake Erie each makes two trips to St. Louis. Traverse City, at least, goes only one time.

But Washington isn't the only team with strange road schedules. For example, Florence has a stretch in July in which it travels to Sauget, Ill, then to Traverse City, Mich., then back to the St. Louis area and O'Fallon, Mo.

When calculating the mileage for each team, I did not take into account if a team travels back and forth each night to play a close rival. For example, when Windy City plays at Joliet, it might opt to drive the 52 miles roundtrip each day of the series instead of one 26-mile trip and three-night stay at the Fairfield Inn in Joliet. I credit Windy City for one 26-mile trip.

Here are the miles each team will travel:

11,345 - Washington
10,729 - Traverse City
10,599 - London
 9,273 - Southern Illinois
 8,716 - Lake Erie
 8,241 - River City
 8,148 - Florence
 7,773 - Gateway
 7,587 - Rockford
 7,517 - Evansville
 7,231 - Joliet
 6,745 - Schaumburg
 6,357 - Windy City
 6,255 - Normal

It was surprising to me that Normal, which has the 12-game road trip, will log the fewest miles. But the CornBelters did open the season with a nine-game homestand.

From the start of the season until Aug. 1, Schaumburg's travel schedule compared to every other team in the league is stunningly easy. While other teams are criss-crossing the country, the Boomers will have plenty of time to hang out at the country club pool if they please. The Boomers make only two 500-mile trips all year.

Some of the interesting facts that I discovered:

* London logged more miles (1,533) before playing its seventh game of the season than Schaumburg will from May 29 to July 2.

* Normal's 12-game road trip covered only 102 miles fewer than Schaumburg will log during a 16-series stretch from May 25 to July 18.

* Windy City does not leave the Chicagoland area from July 6 through July 30. During that span, it's longest road trip is 26 miles.

* Washington has seven consecutive series (July 31-Aug.23) that will require at least 508 miles of travel. The Wild Things have 12 trips of 500+ miles. That's the most in the league. Second is Southern Illinois with eight 500-mile trips.

* Windy City and Joliet each make only one 500-mile trip all season, and Joliet's is from Washington to Normal, Ill., for the season finale.

UPDATE: I received today from WJPA Radio's Bob Gregg copies of several emails that confirm the Wild Things' game Sunday, June 17 at London has been changed to 6:30 p.m. That will make the travel from Florence more managable. But if you check the Wild Things' website, it still lists the June 17 game as a 1 p.m. start. London's website also lists all home games as being 1 p.m. starts, and there is no designation that the June 17 start time has been changed. I'm not in the business of running a baseball team, but I think letting people know what time your games begin is rather important.