"Hockey will always be sports' ugly step-sister. Even those who don't really care seem to go out of their way to dislike the game."Though, sadly, I can see his point most other Americans' attitudes of indifference toward it.) and watching the same exact dunk or 3-point shot on SportsCenter every waking moment. The smell of grass, hot dogs, and Cracker Jacks have been hot and heavy in the air for a few weeks now with spring training steadily progressing in Florida and Arizona. And starting tonight, the Boys of Summer will return to their homes, be them ancient temples to the Baseball Gods, modern works of art, hyper-expensive replicas of their former selves, or impressive domes people love to hate, and we will be watching. But, do the overblown economics really dictate the game as much the press - and the fans of the smaller-market teams - lead you to believe? Have the fortunes of all 30 teams really been decided before the games even count? If you listen to what Bud Selig tells you, yeah, and something needs to be done about it.
With the first pitch of the season being thrown in Boston against (who else?) dem Yanks, the chatter around the League right now is creating something of an obscure idea here in North America, but common in the rest of the world in their football leagues: rotating leagues. Now, all four North American major sports leagues (as well as lesser ones, like Major League Soccer and the Arena Football League) keep a static form of divisions; that is, they stay in the same league and division until the powers-that-be decide - for any myriad of reasons, ranging from geographical considerations to scheduling balance - to make a change. Over in Eurasia, however, what league you are playing in in any given year depends on how well or poorly you did the year prior. If you were the champion of Division II last year, you can move to Division I to try and see if you can win that one, too. If you sucked in Div. I after moving up, well, be thankful your team isn't being sent to Div. III instead.
Though MLB's proposal isn't as radical (no, teams like the Mets won't be sent to the Minors, though if they were, they'd probably be better off going straight to the Single-A Sally League), it would allow teams that are in "rebuilding years" - excluding the Mets - to move to a higher-grossing division to get more revenue share for said rebuilding by swapping with teams that are constantly competing against powerhouses and falling just short. The best example of this would be putting the Oakland A's in the AL "East" and letting the Tampa Bay Rays play in the AL "West" so they both get what they want: the A's would get more money for better players and a healthier future, while the Rays would have a chance at a division title without relying on the bad luck of other teams to make it happen (let's face it: the Rays were phenomenal in 2008, but the Yanks were just plain bad, which allowed the Rays to exploit that and make it to the Promised Land).
Proponents say, since a salary cap isn't in the cards anytime in the near future, this is the closest to parity we can get in baseball right now. I'm in the camp with the opponents, however. I believe constantly moving teams around year-to-year not only wreaks havoc on the schedule, but also fragments rivalries, which is truly what puts people in the stands. It also puts an undue burden on the team, causing them to under-perform. No longer is it a simple jog up the East Coast to play the other teams in the division; you're now flying out west for 36 games a year, playing with jet-lag 24 games more than the norm. Anyone who has crossed the country once had a hard enough time acclimating to the change once; imagine your own performance doing that up to 12 times in a 5 month period. No one should have to work under those types of conditions, even athletes.
A much better - and more controversial - solution would be to break up the two toughest teams in baseball, who are locked in eternal grudge match while the rest of the division suffers. Yes, I am talking about the AL East's Yanks and Red Sox. Yes, geographically, they are in the correct division, but by virtue of their bottomless wallets, they have pretty much owned the AL East and, by virtue of 2nd place in the division, the AL Wild Card for all but 7 of the 15 years the current format has been in play (1997 Orioles and 2008 Rays each won the division, and 1996 O's, 2000 Mariners, 2001 A's, 2002 Angels, and 2006 Tigers each won the WC). That means, more than half the time, both the Yankees and Red Sox will both be in the playoffs while the rest of the teams are on the sidelines.
The current system penalizes mid-market teams. Not every team has a ravenous fan base like New York and Boston, and the longer they're allowed to control the only two spots into the playoffs, the more it hurts the other teams by lost revenue streams in October and smaller fan bases at the perception of constant mediocrity (if you miss the playoffs, you suck, right?). Leaving those two to play each other for the same playoff spots year-in and year-out will soon do more damage to baseball than steroids ever could.
So, what we will do is have the Yankees and Mets swap leagues, with them going to the NL East and AL East, respectively. Right there, the parity is split between the two sides and breaks up the constant monopoly of the AL East lead positions. For those that say that would just monopolize the NL East (with 4-time division champ and 2-time pennant winner Philadelphia quickly becoming a dynasty) causing the same issue, have Philly and Pittsburgh swap, too. Yeah, it's not geographically correct, but that can be solved later with the addition of two more teams (see my previous post on the subject of expansion).
There, problem solved, and no need for inconsistency year-to-year. Why should other teams be penalized if the core problem is between two behemoths in a top-heavy division? Split those two up, and smaller-market teams will start winning thereby having more people coming to their games, helping MLB as a whole. But logic won't happen in Major League Baseball so long as Bud's still in charge. However, people have surprised me before, but I'm not holding my breath. Until the tides change, the Rays will just have to continue to win on low budgets, I guess.
