Guys,

What is your take on the rumors being floated around of MLB considering realignment? I totally hate the idea and def not for it.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6651634

  "LET ME BE CLEAR",  HOPE & CHANGE IS GOOD ......   JUST ASK THE "BIG O",  YUK, YUK, YUK !!!!!

In Response to Re: MLB realignment:

Oscar Robertson?

i bet bill wasn't a big fan of pumpsie green either.

I just can't see MLB actually doing any of this, they seem too deepseated in tradition. But I guess this was the staff that put in the wild-card, and home-run replays, so maybe we can see forward movement in baseball.

As an "Old School" baseball fan, I would love to see no divisions, no inter-league play with the top 4 getting in the playoffs. Having said that, none of it will happen.

A continuous IL matchup every week (or a 'bye' day for 2 teams) will make for an interesting schedule.  Such is the problem with an odd number of teams.

The good side is eliminating the division disparities in the AL West and NL Central.

As an old-timer myself, who remembers when it was AL vs NL, I am somewhat in agreement with sindarin.

That said, for playoff reasons I think it would be best to stick with three divisions in each league.  Go to a wild-card showdon if you must (ie, adding a second WC team and having a one-game playoff to see which one represents their league) and then proceeding to the three rounds as set up now (ie, division, league and WS).  If that is the case, then I think Milwaukee should move back into the AL and all divisions balanced out at 5 apiece.

In Response to Re: MLB realignment:
WRONG, YAZMAN......  PUMPSIE WAS MY IDOL AS A YOUNG "ALL WORLD 2ND BASEMAN" IN LITTLE LEAGUE !!!!

This is , of course, all motivated by money.

NHL ruined their league by expanding too fast into the south and west, thus losing all the great rivalaries (Boston/ New York Rangers...anyone remember -duh! this was a no brainer, but Bettman , a man with no brains, botched the greatest New York/ Boston rivalry outside of MLB by keeping them in different divisions, although this change was made before him, he needed to fix this error).

Football has been doing the 2 wildcard team thing for a while now, the playoffs now feature teams barely over .500. But , of course, even the huge success they have enjoyed hasn't satisfied the league, owners and players , who are in the process of trying to pry even more money out their devotees by talking about an 18 game regular season ( that's if they ever stop bickering long enough to realize they are all millionaires).

Basketball....I don't know. Ridiculous game , the ball goes back and forth and it either goes in a hoop or does not. I am more entertained watching my cat ( when she is asleep!!!).

Baseball remains ( to some degree) the only sport worth the bother. Now that they are (finally) doing something about the steroids , they need to do something about spiraling payrolls and inconsistent umpiring , though, and somehow , I don't see realignment as a solution to any of that.

They have some real problems, but continue to discuss nonsense....sort of like the people we send to Washington.

Deep seated in tradition isn't necessarily a precedent. The unbalanced schedule is relatively recent, as is of course the Wild Card.

The plan has certain positives in that it allows for the best teams from each league to enter the post season and ends the possibility of a team with a better record than a division winner from being excluded. A more balanced schedule also would ensure that teams in very strong divisions don't have their records adversely effected by the current system of playing so many games in division. For teams not in division with huge road drawing teams like the NYY, Cubs and RS they get a taste of that increased home attendance when the "draw" teams come to town.

But the plan is not without issues. For one it radically increases the travel required, hard on the players and hard on the owners expenses. The teams in divisions with strong draws will be reluctant to play less games against them. The NYY and RS are big money to O's, Rays and Jays and cutting that down from 9 times to say 3 times is going to be a bitter pill for them to swallow. Naturally rivalries draw well and there are a lot of those beyond RS-NYY that would be affected adversely, SF-LA, Cubs-St Louis just to name a couple.

But most of all I hate the idea of teams playing 162 games to play one game to determine if they move on in the post season.

Odds are currently being reported at 50%-50% and I think this got leaked by somebody in the MLB offices to Buster Olney hoping that getting it public might improve those odds. I doubt it will.

In my opinion all of these rivalries would be seriously helped by a decrease of games played. I mean seriously, we go in and sweep the Yankees twice and you hear "Well there's still 10 more games to play so who knows." Make these BOS-NYY nailbiter games to be huge, instead of the season series being huge.

In Response to Re: MLB realignment:


What does "helped' mean?  If you mean that the rivalry will increase and each game will be more exciting, then sure.  If you mean that ticket sales and TV revenues will be helped by a decrease in games played, then you are 100% off....

In Response to Re: MLB realignment:
Your post was going up while I was typing my last one so I did not see yours.

I honestly do not think re-alignment is about $$$. MLB in this scheme would pick-up exactly two playoff games (one for each league between the two Wild Cards) to set -up the best of 5, best of 7, best of 7 tournament.

As I mentioned one of the pitfalls maybe in fact cost. Cost of travel and cost of replacing high voltage rivalry games with balanced schedule games.

I personal don't fret about spiralling payrolls. When and if the sport can't support them, they will go down. The players take certainly is not going to stop owners from increasing ticket prices, if the market will bring $200 a seat that is what the owners will charge. I have no issue with who puts the people in that $200 seats getting a good piece of that myself. Fenway doesn't sell out so that people can watch John Henry own after all.

As for the two wild card team thing in football the most recent "can you believe they even made the playoffs" was the Seattle Seahawks a divsion champion. Which of course became even funnier when the 7-9 Seahawks got home field versus the 11-5 Saints and then beat them.

I think in part what baseball is trying to do is get as many teams as possible with strong records a shot at the Wild Card, hence the expansion. Because this year it is probable by example that the three best records in the AL may come from the East.

And the balanced schedule certainly gives Wild Card more equity.

Still while it isn't about $$$ (IMO) it is an idea that isn't likely to ever happen and at least IMO because it isn't about $$$.

Just my takes