A history of realignment

There's a new website and magazine out called Gotham Baseball, which focuses on the past, present and future (as in minor leagues) of the grand ol' game in the Big Apple. In his column on Sunday, Mark Healey proposed radical realignment of the game and asked for feedback. I responded in brief on the site's forum, but it got me thinking to the point where I couldn't fit everything into a message board post.

That term — "radical realignment" — has come up before, particularly in 1997. That's when Bud Selig, if you recall, wanted to make baseball's divisions geographical. He would've put the Mets and Yankees in the same division, for instance, as well as the Cubs and White Sox, Dodgers and Angels, Giants and A's and Rangers and Astros. The American League — if it kept that name — would've had all 14 of its teams in the Eastern time zone.

But before we get to that, I wanted to go back and look at the history of baseball's alignment, at least since it split into divisions with the 1969 expansion (such teams are denoted by italics throughout this essay).

The original divisions:

NL East
Cubs
Expos
Mets
Phillies
Pirates
Cardinals

NL West
Braves
Reds
Astros
Dodgers
Padres
Giants

AL East
Orioles
Red Sox
Indians
Tigers
Yankees
Senators

AL West
Angels
White Sox
Royals
Twins
A's
Pilots

The NL remained unchanged until 1993, while the AL saw the Pilots move from Seattle to Milwaukee (and become the Brewers) in 1970. In 1972, the Senators moved from Washington to Texas (becoming the Rangers) and the Brewers went from the West Division to the East. And then the AL expanded again in 1977:

AL East
Orioles
Red Sox
Indians
Tigers
Brewers
Yankees
Blue Jays

AL West
Angels
White Sox
Royals
Twins
A's
Mariners
Rangers

Nothing changed — other than the League Championship Series, which went from best-of-five affairs to best-of-seven in 1986 — for 16 years. That brings us to 1993, a year that I think should now be considered as other years of significant changes are. There was 1920, when Babe Ruth led the majors with 54 home runs, 25 more than anyone had hit, ever (that was Ruth himself, in 1919). There was 1961, commonly referred to as the start of "the expansion era." There was 1969, the year after Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA prompted the lowering of the pitcher's mound from 15 inches to 10. There was 1973, the year the designated hitter was created.

And there was 1993. First, baseball came to Denver. Second, Camden Yards entered its second year after such a stellar inaugural season that it ushered in the "retro" — read "smaller" — ballpark trend. Third, in all likelihood, 1993 marked the year baseball expanded beyond its competitive capabilities. A fourth potential watershed moment for '93 is the earliest days of the steroid era because it wasn't long after this that, in hindsight, we see the numbers really got out of whack.

So the NL divisions in 1993 looked like this:

NL East
Cubs
Marlins
Expos
Mets
Phillies
Pirates
Cardinals

NL West
Braves
Reds
Rockies
Astros
Dodgers
Padres
Giants

That '93 expansion, of course, was set several years earlier. So while that was already laid out, in 1992 commissioner Fay Vincent proposed realignment. His intention to essentially trade the Cubs and Cardinals from the NL East to the West in exchange for the Braves and Reds, would've made the divisions look like this in 1993:

NL East
Braves
Reds
Marlins
Expos
Mets
Phillies
Pirates

NL West
Cubs
Rockies
Astros
Dodgers
Cardinals
Padres
Giants

After ousting Vincent and installing one of their own as a figurehead, the owners went ahead with realignment on their own. This plan went through for two reasons. One was that the owners came up with it themselves and therefore liked it better because they weren't being told what to do (and the Cubs and Cardinals weren't losing 6 or 7 p.m. game times by playing so many teams in the Mountain or Pacific time zones). The other was that it created two more playoff teams in each league and another round of postseason games off of which the owners would make more money:

NL East
Braves
Marlins
Expos
Mets
Phillies

NL Central
Cubs
Reds
Astros
Pirates
Cardinals

NL West
Rockies
Dodgers
Padres
Giants

AL East
Orioles
Red Sox
Tigers
Yankees
Blue Jays

AL Central
White Sox
Indians
Royals
Brewers
Twins

AL West
Angels
A's
Mariners
Rangers

In researching this post, I found an article from the June 24, 1993, edition of USA Today that applied this 1995 realignment from 1977. It reported:

The 1987 Minnesota Twins, who won the World Series, would not have made the playoffs, even as a wild card. ...
The Mets, Dodgers and Blue Jays would've been October regulars. New York would have won six consecutive NL East titles (1984-89), with a wild card in '90. Los Angeles would have dominated the weak NL West, taking 10 titles in the 15 years (not counting the '81 strike season, when they won the Series). Toronto would have made the playoffs seven of the last nine years. ...
The 1978 and '84 Kansas City Royals - both AL West champions - would not have made the playoffs. ...
Montreal wouldn't have won a division but would have made three wild-card appearances. ...
The Yankees and Red Sox would still have played off for the 1978 American League East title. But Bucky Dent's home run wouldn't have been as memorable. The loser of the game would have been guaranteed a wild-card spot.

Then we were saddled with the dumbest expansion ever (Tampa Bay makes it so on its own), necessitating a move of the Brewers from the AL to the NL and the Tigers from the AL East to the AL Central and leaving us with:

NL East
Braves
Marlins
Expos
Mets
Phillies

NL Central
Cubs
Reds
Astros
Brewers
Pirates
Cardinals

NL West
Diamondbacks
Rockies
Dodgers
Padres
Giants

AL East
Orioles
Red Sox
Yankees
Devil Rays
Blue Jays

AL Central
White Sox
Indians
Tigers
Royals
Brewers
Twins

AL West
Angels
A's
Mariners
Rangers

Thankfully, there's been little movement since, but the Expos' move from Montreal to Washington didn't alter the divisions and certainly made the game stronger. Now if Bud had gotten his way in '97, we would've been left with this mess (though the division names weren't discussed):

AL Division A
Orioles
Red Sox
Expos/Nationals
Mets
Yankees
Phillies
Blue Jays

AL Division B
Braves
Reds
Indians
Tigers
Marlins
Pirates
Devil Rays

NL "Central"
Cubs
White Sox
Astros
Royals
Brewers
Twins
Cardinals
Rangers

NL "West"
Angels
Diamondbacks
Rockies
Dodgers
A's
Padres
Giants
Mariners

This plan would've also instituted the designated hitter in both leagues — which might not have been named the American and National leagues — as well as two wild cards in each one. When that didn't fly because so many teams were against switching leagues or competing in the same division with the Yankees (as the Mets were), it was scaled back to this:

Under the moderate realignment plan, this is how baseball would look (each division is expected to be broken down into two subdivisions, which would produce four playoff teams in each league and eliminate the need for the current wild card):
AL Division A
Orioles
Red Sox
Marlins
Yankees
Astros OR Royals
Rangers OR Devil Rays

AL Division B
White Sox
Indians
Tigers
Twins
Expos/Nationals
Devil Rays OR Rangers

NL Division A
Braves
Cubs
Reds
Royals OR Astros
Brewers
Pirates
Cardinals

NL Division B
Angels
Diamondbacks
Rockies
Dodgers
A's
Padres
Giants
Mariners

This plan would've also included "sub-divisions" within each grouping, somehow maintaining four playoff teams in each league (I don't know how that would've worked, because it's not like they could have two three-team divisions in those AL alignments). The NL would've remained DH-free and the AL would've kept it. It also would've put the Canadian teams together, which may have eventually saved baseball in the Great White North, but that's still unlikely.

As for Healey's plan (you know, that link way up at the top of this post), what bothers me most is that it takes away any regional rivalries for the Mets (no Phillies or Nationals) and splits up the Cubs and Cardinals, which would be like splitting up the Yankees and Red Sox. I also don't like keeping the Devil Rays and moving the Marlins. The fans aren't the problem in Miami, it's the owners. When the team wins, the fans show up. In St. Petersburg, a hideous ballpark combined with owners who won't spend any money mean there's no reason for anyone to become a Devil Rays fan, particularly when so many people in the area latch onto the Yankees, who train across the causeway in Tampa. (Or they've moved there from New York to begin with.)

I also don't think baseball could handle another expansion — if you've been to a minor-league game lately, you've seen that there are maybe one or two studs per team, no matter what the level. Of course, there are some with four or five top prospects, but every team has guys who can barely hit their weight — and some of these guys have a hard time tipping the scales above 180. There might be enough talent out there to fill two more 25-man rosters with major-league caliber players, but there certainly isn't enough for two more 40-man rosters, or two more entire farm systems. But if baseball were to expand, it could then do away with the DH. I'm sure the players' union would concede 14 hired hitters in exchange for 50 new job openings. Las Vegas and Charlotte might be able to support a major-league team long-term, but I don't think Portland would. Mexico City would probably be a better choice.

I question, too, just how well four-team divisions would work in baseball. It's such a long season that the best teams will usually work their way to the top before long. A 162-game schedule, no matter what a manager or player might say, provides for some meaningless games. Or, at least, some games that matter much more than others. The long schedule provides for, and necessitates, that some players take a day off. Over a six-month season, the teams at the bottom of the four-team divisions could be 50 games out. The Mets could clinch by the trading deadline and the Devil Rays would be mathmatically eliminated by the Fourth of July. While fans will talk about parity in the NFL, how much of that is the result of a 16-game schedule? If there were a way for the league to play 32 or 60 football games a season, you'd have a much better chance of the best teams always coming out on top. There's a reason you don't see the likes of Brett Favre or LaDanian Tomlinson taking a day off, and it has everything to do with the short schedule and the need to win every game.

Baseball should stick with what it has now. There's no need to mess with it anymore. But the word "contraction" will come up again (it's written into the collective bargaining agreement only that MLB wouldn't look into it for a certain period of time), and that could lead to something bigger churning in the mind of Bud. Let's hope it's only that he contracts himself from the league's executive offices when his term expires.

Extra Innings Blogging

Don't know why I started to do this, but I had all these thoughts and observations as I was flipping through some ballgames in the early part of the evening before dinner, and before watching some other TV. So I wrote them out.

Mets at Braves, 8:10 p.m. I’d forgotten that Mets announcer Ted Robinson went to Notre Dame, until a friend just reminded me. I looked him up in the alumni directory – his major (American Studies) and dorm (Grace Hall) were the same as my own. Though he graduated (May 1978) four months before I turned 2 and seven months before my sister was born. … The Mets are getting guys on, and running (stolen bases for Jose Reyes, third, and Mike Cameron, second, in the first), but they’re stranding the runners. Mike Piazza struck out with two on in the first, and Doug Mientkiewicz hit into what I think Robinson said was his third double play in as many as bats, going back to last night’s game.

Phillies at Marlins, 8:15 p.m. Man, is Brett Myers on this year or what? He’s dealing again in Florida – four shutout innings now, a 2-0 lead. He’s become the stopper in that rotation – the guy they want going to the mound to end a losing streak. And for the Phillies lately, any visit to Miami has prompted a losing streak.

Mets at Braves, 8:23 p.m. Sorry, I’ll be coming back to this one a lot. Tim Hudson’s laboring tonight. Three hits, a walk, and he’s gone to three-ball counts on a couple of hitters already, and there’s two outs in the third. Fifty-two pitches after he gets Piazza looking at a full-count pitch clearly over the inner half of the plate, two runners left. Swing, man! David Wright’s continuing his tear with a single in his first at bat, now 4-for-4 with a walk in his last five trips to the plate. He’s 11-for-19 to this moment during his six-game hitting streak.

Rockies at Brewers, 8:32 p.m. Milwaukee’s staked Victor Santos to a 3-0 lead after one. I’m hoping for a second straight stellar spot start from a Brewers starter for my fantasy team. I had Chris Capuano last night and dumped him for Santos tonight. I figured the young Rocks – the youngest team in the majors, the graphic on FSN North just told me – will come through for me again. On the mound for Colorado is Jeff Francis, the Rockies’ young stud prospect, whom I drafted but had to cut loose.

Red Sox at Blue Jays, 8:34 p.m. Top of the sixth, 4-3 Blue Jays. David Wells is struggling this season.

Phillies at Marlins, 8:35 p.m. Kenny Lofton walks, drops the bat across the plate and sort of hot-dogs it down to first, and apparently Josh Beckett didn’t like it. There were words, and Lofton took a few steps toward the mound halfway down the line. There were discussions among umpires, and between umpires and coaches. Nothing happened, just a bunch of inflated egos brushing in the Miami night.

Twins at Indians, 8:36 p.m. It’s 1-1 with an out in the top of the sixth, but Minnesota has runners at first and third. I’d considered both Jake Westbrook, who’s pitched well against the Twins this season, and Cleveland starter Joe Mays for spot starts, but Santos’s numbers and matchup were too good to overlook.

Mets at Braves, 8:37 p.m. Woah. In the 15 minutes it took me to surf through all those other games, Tom Glavine’s dispatched the Braves in the bottom of the third and Hudson already has two Mets (including Wright) out in the top of the fourth. Still scoreless. Could be a pitchers duel between Hudson and the classic Glavine.

Tigers at Yankees, 8:39 p.m. Had to take a look. 7-0 Yanks, bottom of the fifth, runner on second, A-Rod up, no outs. Ho-hum. Yeah, the Yankees have won 12 of 14 since the big panic move of early May, but that could have been predicted when you realized that they had 12 straight against Oakland and Seattle. And the Mets should’ve won two of three over the weekend, but they gave away Sunday’s game to those Bronx boys. I might make it back to this game.

Mets at Braves, 8:41 p.m. Hey, Mientkiewicz is on first! Way to get Glavine to the plate now, rather than leading off the fifth.

Twins at Indians, 8:42 p.m. I guess Jacques Jones got that runner in from third. It’s hard to tell what I miss when I leave a channel, because Yahoo’s box scores aren’t updating and I don’t feel like jumping over to ESPN or one of the other sites. So I’ll just move on …

Phillies at Marlins, 8:43 p.m. One-hundred pitches for Beckett with two outs in the sixth. First and third, David Bell up with a 2-2 count. Still 2-0. Bell down looking on a curve – perhaps questionable – at the letters.

Mariners at Orioles, 8:44 p.m. Two outs with Rafael Palmeiro up. I’m hitting a lot of games when they have two outs in an inning at the moment. 2-1 Seattle in the third, runner on first. I haven’t seen many games at Camden Yards so far this season, but I don’t remember noticing that, behind the plate, not only do they have a brick wall creating the border between seats and field, but the gate behind the plate has a brick design on it. Kinda funny. Palmeiro down swinging on a changup.

Red Sox at Blue Jays, 8:46 p.m. This one’s moving along. Top of the seventh. You can kind of see where I’m flipping through the Extra Innings channels by looking at the order of the games. At the moment, I’m going up from 441 to 449 (those with games on at the moment); earlier, I’d gone from 449 down to 442. But now I’ve got to go eat dinner. It’s a late one tonight.

Mets at Braves, 9 p.m. The Braves went up 1-0 and they played that stupid, insulting, annoying tomahawk chant. Idiots. Then they tried to squeeze in a run, but Glavine dove and flipped the ball home for the out. Suckers.

OK, I’m done for now. Time to watch some other things, as per the lady’s wishes.

Mostly linkage

Did you know that you can just call up Bob Watson, the man in MLB's offices who hands out the suspensions? Very interesting.

Yogi Berra is 80 years old today. I got to meet him, briefly, yesterday. It was nearly 5 p.m. and he'd had a long day. Otherwise, it might've been a more in-depth interview. Which is to say, it would've been an interview.

I don't think John Rocker will ever make it back to the majors, mainly because he continues to open his mouth. If he'd just shut up and play baseball, he might be able to throw strikes again, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. After comparing himself to Hank Aaron and Jackie Robinson, people are done giving him a fourth, fifth or sixth chance. Among the more interesting columns and responses are those from Buck O'Neil, USA Today, Newsday and the Daily News.

While watching some of yesterday afternoon's Red Sox-Athletics game, I saw an ad for a Sox travel package. A Boston travel agent has put together airfare, hotel and tickets to the Red Sox-Orioles series in Baltimore from July 7-10. The first game of that series overlaps with a Nationals-Mets game, and I'd imagine that the O's will win that head-to-head attendance battle. The Red Sox have also put together what may be the best baseball giveaway ever: They're raffling off three authentic World Championship rings, with proceeds going to charity. Massachusetts residents only, though.

The Mets are in this thing

So three weeks ago, I said the Mets had an important stretch coming up. My hope for them was to go 15-7 over the 22 games, all but two were against NL East opponents. They missed my target by two games, which isn't bad, and went 13-9 to emerge 15-14, 2 1/2 games behing the division-leading Braves. Had they followed my plan, they might be half a game out -- or half a game up in the division lead. Stupid Mets.

But hey, they're in it (and so are the Nationals! Philly, not so much at the moment) and they should be able to take four of six on this Midwest swing to Milwaukee and Chicago before coming home for a big nine-game homestand against St. Louis, Cincinnati and the Yankees.

Whatever, Rocker

I'm sick and tired of John Rocker.

That's all I have to say.

That, and I love some lawyers.

Orioles and Nationals at the gate, April review

Peter Angelos is going to make out like a bandit. That's going to be my prediction, now that we're one month into the season. The slimy lawyer bitched and moaned (and probably cried) that his franchise, the Baltimore Orioles, would be so damaged by the presence of a team in Washington that he held up the move of the Montreal Expos for two years, then got a sweetheart deal out of the cable network that will show both Nationals and Orioles games. However, as my friends in Washington tell me, when the Nationals and Orioles both play at the same time, guess which one is put on the air? In a small bit of just retribution, Angelos is being sued by Comcast, which has the rights to Orioles games on cable through 2006.

After Angelos claimed that "there are no real baseball fans in D.C.," he tried to avoid having a Washington team presumably continue to take away from his own team's declining attendance figures. What he seemed to forget, though, is that after the novelty of a gorgeous ballpark wears off, the sure-fire way to get people to come to your games is to put together an exciting, winning team.

So here we are now at the end of April, a day into May. Baltimore stands atop the AL East, the toughest division in baseball in which to crack the top two (not to be confused with the toughest division in baseball). They have a four-game lead as of this morning -- on Boston and Toronto, not even the Yankees, who have just finished the second-worst April since George Steinbrenner bought the team. Only the 1984 club, which was chasing the juggernaut Tigers, was more games out of first (11 1/2) than these aging pinstripers (7 1/2). The Orioles' 16 wins in April equaled the franchise record for the month. The previous two times it happened, Baltimore went to the World Series (1969) and won the AL East after going wire-to-wire (1997). They might have gone to the Series that year too, had Jeffrey Maier read the rules on the back of his ticket about not interfering with balls in play.

So now, Baltimore and Washington have each played 13 games at home, including nine times when both clubs were at home. The two clubs rank 11th and 15th overall in MLB in attendance per game:

11. Baltimore: 418,444 total, 32,188 per game
15. Washington 398,741 total, 30,672 per game

That's right, it's the sad-sack Orioles, the team we were all supposed to feel sorry for, that's leading the Beltway battle by nearly 2,000 fans per game. Not only that, they've sold 66.8 percent of all tickets, while Washington's managed only 54.1, according to ESPN's attendance rankings.

Here are the last five head-to-head gates, since I wasn't paying attention last week...

SUNDAY:
Baltimore vs. Tampa Bay: 30,784
Washington vs. the Mets: 27,333

SATURDAY:
Baltimore vs. Tampa Bay: 19,920
Washington vs. the Mets: 40,913

FRIDAY:
Baltimore vs. Tampa Bay: 24,910
Washington vs. the Mets: 30,627

April 21:
Baltimore vs. Boston: 40,419
Washington vs. Atlanta: 30,728

April 20:
Baltimore vs. Boston: 36,478
Washington vs. Atlanta: 27,374

If the Orioles can keep up their run of contention in the AL East, they should win this competition easily, though unfortunately we won't have the pleasure of seeing Peter Angelos eat his words. It's too bad Angelos and, say, mayor Anthony Williams of D.C. couldn't put a friendly wager on this attendance battle, the way mayors or governors do when their teams meet in the World Series or Super Bowl. It wouldn't have been feasible because each man, in effect, would've had to root against his team's attendance with regard to the other team's in order to win (Angelos saying Washington would hurt his team's attendance, Mayor Williams saying Washington's its own city and wouldn't draw from the Orioles' fan base). But it would've been nice to see Angelos, in a pennant race in September, cursing his sellouts to save face.

But maybe he wouldn't have to worry about that, since lawyers rarely show their true reptilian skin.