Rad Realignment

Michael Cox

You might as well count the owners' votes right now - our buddy Bud is gonna be King, er, Commish, and with the official title he'll toss a lot more weight around. He's probably already cooking up some of his "fan polls" for radical realignment even as we speak:

POLLSTER: Excuse me, miss. I work for MLB. Would you mind answering a couple of questions?

WOMAN ON THE STREET: Sure. Nice clipboard.

POLLSTER: Thanks. First question...do you consider yourself a "baseball fan"?

WOTS: I dunno about that.

POLLSTER: Well, do you like baseball more than, say, having an enraged vicuna mistake your leg for its natural prey?

WOTS: Oh, yes.

POLLSTER: Good, good. (Puts check mark by "baseball fan".) So, next question...take a look at these two lists of MLB teams. One is a new "radical realignment" plan which ensures that your team will only play teams in your area for most of a 162-game season. Think of it as a "Fox Game of the Week" almost every day.

WOTS: (shivers)

POLLSTER: And here's the current alignment, plus the return of Stalinist policies in Russia. So which do you prefer?

WOTS: It's awfully close, but I'm a little down on Stalin these days, so I'd have to pick the realignment.

POLLSTER: Excellent.

So anyway, to try to help MLB on its way to the realignment we all know is coming, I proudly offer to you a couple of alternative realignment plans we could actually get behind. Plus, since they're my ideas, they've got to be better than Bud's, right?

Plan 1: The New MLB and MLB Classic

MLB 2000	MLB Classic
East	East
Tampa Bay Devil Rays	Philadelphia Phillies
Milwaukee Brewers	Detroit Tigers
Minnesota Twins	Pittsburgh Pirates
Cleveland Indians	Florida Marlins
Toronto Blue Jays	Baltimore Orioles
Montreal Expos	Boston Red Sox
New York Mets	New York Yankees
Chicago White Sox	Atlanta Braves
West	West
Kansas City Royals	St Louis Cardinals
Arizona Diamondbacks	Texas Rangers
Anaheim Angels	Colorado Rockies
Seattle Mariners	Los Angeles Dodgers
San Diego Padres	Chicago Cubs
San Francisco Giants	Cincinnati Reds
Oakland Athletics
Houston Astros

The concept here is that there are two types of baseball fans: the Purists, and the Latter-day Fans. For the former, we have MLB Classic. It's a league mainly composed of older teams with rich history, teams playing in classic (or nouveau-classic) ballparks or who follow the old guidelines of hiring square-jawed, upstanding citizens (Orioles - of course, quality of play is not a necessity), bringing them up through the trusty ol' farm system (Dodgers, although that's changing), cornering the market on free-agents (Yankees, same as it ever was), or dumping them all to the rich guys (Marlins, natch).

MLB 2000 is the league of newer teams, teams who were stolen from other cities (Brewers, Giants, A's, Twins), teams with young, media-savvy players (M's), and those with modernistic ballparks either in place or in the works (the Tribe sneaks in with this guideline- no park with toothbrushes for light standards can be called "traditional").

The bad news is that regional rivalries are pretty much discarded under this setup. The good news is that the Classic East will kill each other with their payrolls.

MLB FA

First Division	Second Division	Third Division
New York Yankees	New York Mets	Seattle Mariners
Atlanta Braves	Milwaukee Brewers	Colorado Rockies
San Diego Padres	Philadelphia Phillies	Chicago Cubs
Houston Astros	Toronto Blue Jays	Kansas City Royals
Anaheim Angels	St Louis Cardinals	Tampa Bay Devil Rays
San Francisco Giants	Pittsburgh Pirates	Montreal Expos
Boston Red Sox	Los Angeles Dodgers	Cincinnati Reds
Cleveland Indians	Baltimore Orioles	Durham Bulls
Texas Rangers	Minnesota Twins	Syracuse Skychiefs
Chicago White Sox	Oakland Athletics	Fresno Grizzlies

The basic concept here is taken from soccer, and in particular the English Football Association (thus the title). The divisions are broken down on the basis of one factor: the quality of the teams. The above divisions reflect the won-loss records as of today.

Teams in the First Division would play only other First Division teams. Same with the Second and Third divisions. This keeps relative parity and the "ability to compete" that so many owners have whined so long and hard about. The top two First Division teams would play the World Series, assuring the very best in the Fall Classic each year.

The key to advancement, if you're the Royals or Pirates, is through advancement. The top three teams in the Second and Third Divisions advance to the division above the next year, and the bottom three are relegated to the division below. This can mean fresh competition for teams who move up or down, keeping the fans interested.

By now you may have noticed that the Tigers, Marlins and Diamondbacks are missing, with Durham, Syracuse and Fresno in their place. This is the beauty part. Suck mightily and you're out of the league entirely, and the top three AAA teams take your place. Don't get too stuck on those new teams, however, because they're still affiliates and can lose players to the big club at any time. Needless to say, there are a few issues like this, and the exorbitant franchise fee that Arizona paid only to be sent to the minors, to work out, but c'mon now - wouldn't it be fun?

Michael Cox had one too many chicken satays tonight and he really needs to finish the article, if you know what I mean. Send Kaopectate to mc@strikethree.com.