CBA’s regard for player travel, rest a win-win

One of the things Major League Baseball players got from the new labor agreement is a common-sense approach to travel. If that sounds like a small thing, it’s not.

Virtually every veteran player has a horror story about playing a night game on one coast, flying through the night and playing two time zones away the next afternoon.

Players say you need to check into a hotel at 6 a.m. and ask for a 10 a.m. wake-up call only once to understand that there needed to be a better way. Players have long believed that this kind of scheduling contributes to lethargic performances, if not injuries.

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Tony Clark, the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, had seen it firsthand during a 15-year playing career and called it “fundamental to the health and performance of players.”

Here’s how the new labor deal will make life better. For one thing, the regular season will begin midweek in 2018 to give players an additional four days off per season.

Also, beginning in 2018, teams will not, say, play a night game in New York, then a night game in Los Angeles the following day, as …

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