It’s exactly 1 degree out as I write this, but don’t worry: Baseball season is right around the corner. Right?

You can worry. I’m worried, too. NIU baseball and softball have already kicked off, going to far-flung places like Arizona and Florida, but both will be home soon: baseball on March 21 and softball on March 26. It’s going to be cold.

In the meantime, major league baseball kicks off March 30 (I don’t count the games in Australia because no one else does). Does anyone believe it’ll be warmer then?

Of course, you say. It’s a whole month from now. It has to warm up.

You all may have selective memories, but I don’t. March and April are still cold in this frozen wasteland called the Midwest. Should we freeze to death at the ballpark? No! We should push the start of baseball back a month and shorten the schedule while we’re at it.

Think about it. I command you. Baseball lasts from April 30 to Sept. 15, and the playoffs actually end in October. Golly gee, Batman, that’s wonderful. You’re damn right, Billy. Damn right.

I’ll tell you why I’m damn right, and why I’m damn opposed to baseball starting when it does: Forty degrees isn’t nice. It may seem nice now while desperately trying to save our fingers and toes from turning blue in the cold, but it isn’t. It’s like watching a Joakim Noah jump shot; it’s that cold. That’s why I can’t wait until the day after Opening Day, especially at Wrigley Field.

After a day of hope and the Cubs getting blown out by 15, reality will set in. All of 4,000 people will pack the seats; the rest will absentmindedly watch on TV. On the South Side, all of 13 people will pack the stands at U.S. Cellular Field, and another 400 will watch absentmindedly on TV.

I know what you’re thinking: Attendance doesn’t matter in this day and age. It’s about that TV money, the cold hard cash teams can pull in from having their own networks. Look at the Dodgers and their insane — I mean bonkers — TV deal for $7 billion dollars. Everyone wants that TV moolah; they couldn’t possible care about attendance. You’re wrong.

The crowd at baseball games is a studio audience now and it’s embarrassing to see a game in front of an empty crowd. Look at all those pictures people tweet out of empty stadiums. Those tweeters love it and don’t need the smug satisfaction they get from empty ballparks.

Besides, if attendance didn’t matter, would the White Sox be so desperate to have people come to their games? Half-priced everything!

It’s a win-win for everybody if the season is shortened by a month.

I win because I got my way.

Fans win because they don’t have to pretend to be excited to go to a baseball game in 40-degree weather while the wind is blowing right at them as they sit in the upper deck.

Players win because they don’t have to worry about the cold and they get a slightly longer offseason.

Teams win because a shortened season means less risk for injuries.

Major League Baseball wins because it’ll find a way.

Those are the best kind of wins.

I could go into how a shortened season would make games more meaningful and how the season is usually over by the September for some teams (Cubs, I’m looking at you), but I won’t because I wrote this outside to get the full weather effect and I think my toes have fallen off.

Long and short of it: Baseball is a summer sport; not a late winter or early fall sport, a summer sport. And it’s too cold for baseball.