Baseball has a new problem: Old Man Winter is on steroids, too.

Snow wiped out a four-game series in Cleveland between the Indians and the Mariners.

Four games — gone. It wreaked havoc with fantasy leagues, too, as anyone with Josh Barfield,Victor Martinez and Jhonny Peralta will tell you.

There had to be a better way to decide the series.

How about a snow ball fight?

A dog sled race around the warning track may have sufficed.

The sight of grounds crew members melting snow glistening in the outfield grass at The Jake with leaf blowers certainly was a surreal one.

It also brings up an age-old problem when it comes to Major League Baseball.

Why schedule games in cold weather climates the first two weeks of the season?

Actually, it's not an issue very often.The weather that turned Cleveland into the North Pole last weekend is pretty rare this time of the year.

It was the first series to be completely wiped off the map since September 2004, and that was a hurricane, not a snowstorm.

But, as everyone who woke up Easter morning in Cleveland under more than a foot of snow found out, it can happen.

Bud Selig said scheduling games in warm weather climates early in the season isn't as easy as it seems.

Maybe not to Selig, who couldn't figure out how to finish the All-Star Game several years ago, or how to control the rampant steroid use in his game years after that, but it seems pretty logical to anyone who froze his fastball off at the Pirates' home opener Monday.

Baseball is not meant to be played in the cold. Ask any baseball player worth his weight in sunflower seeds and he'll tell you playing baseball in cold weather is right up there with having a root canal, Britney Spears' hair stylist and Don Imus' press agent on a list of things he most wants to do.

Of the 30 major league teams, 18 are in warm-weather climates or have a domed stadium. How hard is it to schedule games in those 18 cities during the first two weeks of the season?

Sure, a team like the Indians would have to open the season with a long road trip, but at least they will be playing — and playing in weather suitable for baseball, not downhill skiing.

And there wouldn't be a situation like Friday, when the first game of the Indians-Mariners series was one strike away from becoming an official game.

Before the umpires came to their senses and sent the players back to their igloos, Martinez strained a quad and may be put on the disabled list. The Mariners hitters looked so cold and lost at the plate, it looked like they were running from polar bears instead of trying to hit a fastball.

How is starting a season on a nine-game road trip any different than a nine-game road swing in July?

Baseball is not like football, where one game potentially can wreck a season.

Cold weather teams will get rewarded with more home games later in the year, when it really matters.

And think of the happy fans, who won't have to dress for a Steelers game to go see the Pirates.