Sending the Cubs to Japan is probably not what Bud Selig meant by realignment, nor is bringing them back. But as baseball enters this new millennium, the commissioner faces old problems, not the least of which involves placing teams in convenient time zones before the next lockout.
One could argue that our former national pastime should be addressing hopeless situations in Montreal and Minnesota instead of opening the season halfway around the world, but visiting the Land of the Rising Sun is closely related to what’s happening here in the land of the rising salaries.
It’s about money, and it has been done before. For instance, the New York Islanders are in flames, not far from National Hockey League headquarters in Manhattan. Still the NHL felt the tug of globalization, interrupted its schedule and shipped to the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics a bunch of stars who pulled terrible TV ratings.
That was before our helmeted heroes started their own version of realignment in their dormitory rooms, featuring furniture and fire extinguishers. Why we keep doing this stuff to Japan is unclear.
We can only hope the Cubs are more polite after collecting appearance fees, although by the time they leave, it might be known as the Land of the Rising Earned-Run Average.
Besides banking the principal and hyping the interest in Tokyo, Selig aims to energize the sport by tweaking present divisions for 2001. Actually, it’s beyond tweaking. The proposed realignment is rather radical, bordering on cockamamie.
Selig wants to stress geographical rivalries, which is fine and could also be profitable. But baseball’s most serious dilemma, competitive imbalance, would merely acquire a sidekick, unequal distribution of competitive imbalance.
The new deal has three divisions in the American League, two of four teams and one of six, and four National League divisions of four teams.
Naturally such a revision would necessitate an unnatural conclusion to each season. The wild card, a worthy mechanism designed to create playoff fever, will be cured by rabid regionalism in the National League, where only the four division champions will advance.
Not so in the American League, which will sanction not only a designated hitter but a designated runner-up franchise that will qualify for the postseason. So, in theory, teams could each play 162 games over six months to crown seven division winners, all of which could perish while the only wild card claims the World Series.
Granted, that would make for a nice story. But probably not one authored in Chicago, because the White Sox are ticketed for a division including not only Cleveland, which finished 21 1/2 games ahead of the Sox last year, but Texas, which would have finished 20 1/2 games better. Some geographic rivalries.
If you’re the Sox, do you really want to get closer to those teams? How about farther away? But we shouldn’t complain. Minnesota would also be in this bloated division, so the Twins could sell tickets on the promise that they’re the only team in either league likely to finish sixth, 30 games behind the only team in either league to finish fifth.
The only viable plan, until baseball gets its act together, would be bracketing according to payroll. The Yankees, Mets, Atlanta, Cleveland, Baltimore and Texas play in the Bill Gates Division, and so on.
If you think we’re crazy, we didn’t think of it first.
Chairman John Henry saw the blueprint, noticed his forlorn Florida Marlins grouped with Atlanta and called for a timeout. Soon they’ll call for a vote. Everybody’s for the Buddy System until local precincts cite special interests.
The Cubs, however, are immune because they are beloved wherever they play.
You ask, how do you say “Wait till next year” in Japanese?
I say after two victories over the hated Mets in Tokyo, the Cubs will have found the answer after 92 summers of suffering. More 4 a.m. starts.
