State

Of the Game

If I were baseball commissioner for a day, I’d hire a hypnotist to get the owners to accept all my crazy ideas—crazy in the sense that they’re so logical that any team owner would consider them crazy.

Here’s the first step: contract Tampa Bay and Montreal. Tampa Bay is not a major league market and will not support a team during the long hot summer and, of course, it is a terribly run organization that will be still playing like an expansion team 20 years from now. If not for Bud Selig’s inept handling of the attempted sale and shifting of the Montreal Expos, the team would have been in Washington two years ago — in which case I’d be recommending that we contract Milwaukee. Good riddance to both.

Okay, now we’re down to thirty teams. Reorganize back to four six-team divisions. Wait, you say, that only adds up to 24 teams. Right, because I’m creating a new league: The Apprentice League (we can make Donald Trump commissioner and he can fire managers at will). The three last-place teams from each league for 2005 would form this six-team league in 2006.

Now it’s time for the new playoff system, one that is more exciting, with the "Survivor" mentality America loves so much. My personal, traditionalist preference would be to do away with the wild-card altogether, but I know it keeps fans interested and that’s the goal here. So, in the AL and NL, the division winner with the best record gets a bye while the other division winner plays a best-of-three series against the wild card — but all three games are at the division winner’s ballpark (undoing some of that short-series problem the playoffs always create).

Then it’s on to the NLCS, ALCS and the World Series.

Meanwhile, there’s also a best-of-five playoff between the East and West last-place clubs from each league, with the losers getting bumped down for the next season. And, in the Apprentice League, the winner has automatically regained entry while the second and third-place clubs have a best-of-five playoff series to see who gets to return to the Show. The two winners of the Apprentice League also get the first picks in the draft (instead of the worst teams going first), while those getting booted out of the AL and NL pick last. All Apprentice League teams will still receive TV revenue and other revenue-sharing money.

The result of all these changes is that virtually every team would have something to play for - and fans would have a team to root for – in September. Not only would you have pennant races and wild card races, but you’d have the worst teams scrambling for survival and the Apprentice League teams trying to win to make it back. There’d be a lot at stake, including the players’ pride.

And, if that wasn’t enough, while I have all the owners under hypnosis I’d toss out the anti-trust exemption and the 75-mile radius protection for each market. That way, not only could Oakland move to San Jose or Santa Cruz, but the small-market teams that really can’t make it, like Milwaukee or Kansas City would pack up and move to Washington D.C. or to Brooklyn where they might earn enough to compete on a major league level. That would further balance the playing field, as would my rule that all revenue-sharing money must be spent to increase the team’s percentage of money spent on players’ contracts.

When I’m through, baseball would be healthier and more exciting than it’s been in years. And, on my way out the door, I’d throw the designated hitter in the trash. All in a day’s work.

Miller is the editor-in-chief of INSIDE BASEBALL (insidebaseball.us).

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