BP, Expansion, and The American Pastime

                          


Once upon a time there were eight teams each in the National and American leagues and they lived, with some exceptions, more or less within hailing distance of each other.  in the National League there were two teams in New York, one in Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis.
 The American League teams were New York, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Washington, Baltimore, and Milwaukee. 

In the very early years of the century there was much moving about and some shrinkage in the number of National League teams, from twelve to eight, enabling the birth of the American League. At which time one might say the modern era was born.  The American League did not have a team in New York until 1903, when the Baltimore Orioles moved to New York and were renamed the New York Highlanders.  In 1913 the Highlanders became the Yankees. Other renamings and relocations occurred, but it was not until 1961 that serious expansion became frequent.  With enfranchisement providing the greatest source of potential enrichment since the gold rush, the leagues moved steadily westward. 

The Los Angeles Angels were enfranchised in 1961, the Oakland Athletics moved to the west coast in 1968, the Seattle Mariners were enfranchised in 1977, and so the movement west continued until there were, as now, sixteen teams in the National League and fourteen in the American. 

In the earlier and cozier arrangement of eight teams per league no team was further west than St. Louis, which meant that no team was more than about a thousand miles distant from another, and most teams were much closer than that.  After expansion (or just before, when the Dodgers and Giants moved west), the entire western half of the country was opened to major league baseball.  What this meant was that almost half the current major league teams were established west of St.Louis.  A few new teams were also added in the east.

Mainly, the present geographical logic governing the arrangement of teams into east, central, and west divisions makes sense, though it is a bit surprising to see Pittsburgh and Houston in the same division in the National League, and somewhat odd to see divisions of unequal length in both leagues (six in the NL Central; four in the AL West).

Such an arrangement, however, prompts my major point.  While there is a certain geographical logic in the organization of teams in this way it is at the same time an absurdly wasteful way to go about organizing the leagues.  While teams play mainly within their divisions they quite commonly play outside, which means that teams in either league often travel cross-country from east to west and west to east. 

There is no necessary reason why Florida and, say, Los Angeles are in the same league, or Colorado and Washington, and the examples could be easily amplified.  The same holds true for the American League.  If leagues were organized geographically it would not only make more sense from a competitive standpoint (east against west), but it would save millions of gallons of aviation fuel, and avoid the strain and weariness inevitably occasioned by these long cross-country flights.

It is not uncommon to hear of players arriving in a new city in the early morning hours, crossing time zones, and having to be ready for a game later the same day. Much the same point might be made about basketball and football, and to the extent that the same point could be made the economic argument is multiplied several times.

A National League composed of Arizona, Colorado, Dodgers and Angels, White Sox and Cubs, Astros and Rangers, San Francisco, Kansas City, Oakland, Seattle, Minnesota, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and San Diego would preserve the sixteen team National League. These teams are almost entirely in what we commonly recognize as the western part of the country. It would only remain to put them into separate compartments, or divisions if you like.

A fourteen team American League could easily be divided into eight and six teams,  roughly comprising a northern and a southern division.  For the north: Toronto, Boston, Yankees and Mets, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland.  For the south: Atlanta, Florida, Tampa Bay, Washington, Baltimore, Cincinnati.

These divisions are about as logical  as what we presently have (Pittsburgh and Houston in the Central Division of the National League).  They also have the benefit of preserving traditional rivalries (Yankees/Boston, Dodgers/Giants). Moreover, the east/west rivalry would be much more cost efficient in every way, and would spark a new conception of national competition.

In this scheme no team would be traveling anything close to three thousand miles to play another, but characteristically traveling far fewer than even one or two thousand miles.  The greatest distances in each league would be between Los Angeles and Chicago (1740 air miles) and between Toronto and Miami (1234 miles). Such long trips would be infrequent.  In April alone the Dodgers traveled to the east coast for three games against Florida, and later in the month for six games against Washington and New York.

None of this makes either good economic or baseball sense, especially given the very long baseball season.  More flying, more fatigue. A statistician could calculate the number of air miles that occur in each baseball season. He would find that the number would get him much more than a very good start on a flight to the moon (238,857).

Wallace Jackson