 rjonas, Wed, August 5th, 2009 I feel so strongly about this subject that I'm taking my column from the Aug. 5-6 editions of Spotlight Newspapers and putting it on my blog. There are certain major league teams that you can count on being at the bottom of their leagues: • Pittsburgh Pirates • Washington Nationals • Cleveland Browns • Detroit Lions • Los Angeles Clippers • Memphis Grizzlies • New York Islanders • Atlanta Thrashers It is for them that I write the following statement: We need to divide the four major leagues into premier and lower divisions. Why? Because for the teams I’ve listed and many more, there is little hope for them to ever be competitive if forced to compete against organizations that are better run and willing to spend money like there’s no tomorrow. Seriously, what hope do the Washington Nationals have of being competitive in the National League East when they aren’t willing to spend money to sign their top draft picks (two years in a row) or are unable to pull off a trade that actually makes them better? The Pirates are worse because they’re too willing to trade anybody with proven talent to a contender for prospects. They’ve actually made moves like that every year since Barry Bonds bolted for San Francisco. Other teams are just incompetent. The Browns, the Lions, the Clippers, the Grizzlies and the Islanders have made so many bad moves in recent years that they make United States auto makers look like geniuses (FYI: the Lions are owned by the Ford family of Ford motorcar fame). At the rate these and other sad-sack franchises are going, it may not be long before sports fans beg their local politicians to kick them out of town or jail the owners for wasting taxpayers’ money to build them palaces for what they claim to be a major league team. To spare these teams and others from such a fate (and since contraction doesn’t seem to be an option), I urge the commissioners for Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA and the NHL to consider restructuring their leagues to create an upper tier and a lower tier. It would work like England’s Premiere League for soccer. The top half of each league would be made up of teams who have proven themselves to be competitive on a regular basis, and the lower half would be made up of the mediocre and the miserable. There would be no crossovers – the top half plays each other for the premier championship, and the lower half plays each other for being … well, the best of the lower half. At the end of the season, the bottom four teams in the top half get relegated to the lower half, and the top four teams from the lower half move up to the top half. Let’s employ this concept on Major League Baseball. Here’s how I would divide the 30 teams: First division – New York Yankees, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, Detroit Tigers, Minnesota Twins, Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays Second division – Arizona Diamondbacks, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Royals, Oakland A’s, Texas Rangers, Washington Nationals, Florida Marlins, Houston Astros, Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates, Milwaukee Brewers, Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres To avoid overkill, the season would be shortened from 162 games to 140 games with no crossovers between divisions, and the playoffs starting the last week of September instead of the first week of October. Also, there would be no wildcard teams and no divisional playoff rounds. Only the top four teams make the postseason in each league. Now, doesn’t that look and sound better than the current state of Major League Baseball, where it can be argued that there isn’t a meaningful game until the calendar hits Sept. 1 and more than half the teams are out of playoff contention by that point? Imagine doing the same thing in the NFL, the NBA and th NHL. Fans in every city would have hope of winning a title. I realize that this isn’t likely to change how pro teams in this country are run. After all, what motivation would the Pirates have to change their business model if they knew that they still wouldn’t have a chance to win the World Series, even though they’d have a chance to win a title in the second division? But here’s the carrot dangling at the end of the proverbial stick: with the threat of relegation looming, all the teams in the lower half of the premier divisions would be fighting to avoid finishing in the bottom four, while all the teams in the upper half of the second divisions would be fighting to finish in the top four. After all, every team wants to be in the premier division – even a perennial sad sack like the Pittsburgh Pirates. CATEGORY: General Sports
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