The Pecan Park Eagle

Map Compliments of Wikipedia

OK, it’s early Sunday morning and we just got an extra hour to kill time thinking baseball due to the overnight swing back to standard from daylight savings time while we slept. And wouldn’t you know it? The first thing that happens when I wake up and start Googling some other baseball question is that I run across this great simple map that shows where all the current 30 MLB teams are located. Unfortunately, the team names that appear on the Internet screen version of this map to not show up on the copied version here, but we still get the perspective from our general knowledge of geography and where the teams are presently located.

I’m still impressed by any map that shows where the teams are and, right away, I’m hit by the same thought that invades every time I see something like this in concrete form. I want to forget all about the current AL-NL distinctions and the old Car Dealer Commish’s present plans and politics for realigning them all. If MLB had never listened to Bud Selig in the first place, Milwaukee would still be in the AL and Houston wouldn’t be leaving the NL as the ransom price upon Jim Crane’s purchase of the club.

Let’s go back to an even deeper historical “first place.” Had it not been for the failure of the 1969 Seattle Pilots, there might never any have been a “Milwaukee Brewers” vis-a-vis franchise transfer – and no foothold on a climbing vine of MLB power for Mr. Bud Selig.

Oh well. Wishes loom mighty in the Land of What Might Have Been.

Back to the mundane, where no one moves the keys on my computer, but me. It’s time to again realign MLB.

Staying only with the current two league, three 5-team divisions per league set up that’s set to roll anyway for 2013, here are my latest picks for the best design. I’m not even going to name the leagues by “National” or “American”, either way. It if it weren’t for Bud Selig and the “DH”, it wouldn’t matter what you call them either.

Why should I? Almost all the true separate identity factors have been removed from the two leagues by Bud Selig over the years for the sake of unifying his control over all – and leaving only the divisive “DH” difference to split the big league baseball world into two weakly struggling camps. “League where pitchers bat” has become about as small a list as smoking sections in restaurants and other public places. Except for a few places, indoor smoking sections simply no longer exist. As for the “DH”, it’s pretty much used everywhere now, except for the National League. The writing on the wall isn’t hard to read. – Is it?

At any rate, here are my latest new distribution of team picks by the best economic geography factor. Please feel free to submit your own choices – by whatever name, sense, or nonsense you care to realign or augment MLB by franchise moves or expansions:

LEAGUE A

LA Division 1

Mariners

Giants

Athletics

Dodgers

Angels

LA Division 2

Padres

Diamondbacks

Rockies

Royals

Cardinals

LA Division 3

Astros

Rangers

Braves

Rays

Marlins

LEAGUE B

LB Division 1

Twins

Brewers

Cubs

White Sox

Tigers

LB Division 2

Blue Jays

Indians

Reds

Pirates

Phillies

LB Division 3

Red Sox

Yankees

Mets

Orioles

Nationals

That’s it. If I were Commissioner, however, I would also eliminate inter-league play, make sure that the DH is either ruled all the way in or out in both of the so-called big leagues, and introduce some form of media income sharing that offsets the loss of monies to those clubs that do not play either of the big market teams in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

As the “Commish”, I would also eliminate the stupid All Star Game winner rule as the determining factor in deciding which league held home field advantage in the World Series for that same year. Under my plan, the two managers of each league All Star club would meet at home plate prior to the start of each year’s game. They would each be asked by the home plate umpire to guess what I ate for breakfast that day. Whoever came closest to naming what I actually had consumed that morning would immediately win home field advantage for his league in the World Series, regardless of how the All Star Game played out.

Proceeding along this track, I should be able to erase the memory of Bud Selig in about six weeks time, tops, and move forward in sincerity to the service of baseball’s best interests. Then I could abandon the “guess my breakfast” rule and several other edicts that would have been clandestinely designed to spread the presence of Selig Amnesia throughout all of baseball.