Travel implications are a larger concern than most people think, because it isn't just travel that's affected. Teams want the travel to remain as local as possible as often as possible because it costs the teams a lot less money. Players like it as well, because fewer cross-country flights mean fewer middle-of-the-night arrival times...which doesn't get the players run down as much, and greatly reduces the temptation to get "extra help" to combat the cumulative fatigue.

There's also the more far-reaching issues for TV. Local cable and over-the-air networks can't charge as much for ad rates the more often games are broadcast at off-peak hours in different time zones. All that increases dramatically with a balanced schedule. None of that is good for anybody who has a fiduciary interest in the game, which definitely includes all of the parties listed above.

However--as important as those concerns are to the clubs, players, and the broadcast partners--in my view they are decidedly secondary to the most urgent issue tied to a balanced schedule...competitive balance. Right now the unbalanced schedule is the biggest ally of the small-market, small-revenue teams although many of them have not capitalized on it.

Very few people have noticed, but to a fair degree the teams are grouped into divisions with somewhat similar-sized POTENTIAL markets. (That is a key distinction.) In each league, the East division generally has larger potential markets and typically outspends the other divisions, with the Centrals usually bringing up the rear and the West normally somewhere in the middle.

The absolute best advantage long-downtrodden organizations like KC and Pittsburgh have is that they're competing more often against reasonably like-positioned rivals. If you suddenly delete a dozen games against the Twins and Indians from the KC schedule and the corresponding increase is more games against the Yankees and Red Sox, then you're REALLY going to have competitive balance problems way worse than what anybody has seen before. That isn't going to be good for anybody, neither the haves nor the have-nots.

Another smaller, but nevertheless relevant problem is that if you go to a balanced schedule then you might as well not have divisions at all. Believe me, in the long run that would be the outcome.

The reason the clubs don't want that is marketing. Quite likely you can't sell as many "2012 Playoffs" T-shirts in the team store as you can "2012 Division Champions." Nobody is going to run "Playoff Participant" banners up their flagpole, and chances are it also doesn't carry as much clout on season-ticket renewal forms. Of course this is a more ancillary issue, but once again it's primarily the smaller clubs who are the biggest beneficiaries and stand to lose the most if it's eliminated.

There may even be other potential problems of which I am unaware, but certainly expenses, drugs, revenues, competitive balance, and marketing are all vital places to start and easily outweigh whatever alleged problems a balanced schedule will "solve."