It really is time for baseball to get their #$% together

Good Sunday evening to you all, I hope that you're winding down a terrific weekend.  I wanted to muse a little bit on the recent development of the Houston Astros being moved to the American League in 2013.  My response to this??

It's time that Major League Baseball got their #$% together, and became one unified entity, with the same playing rules and league alignments.

Moving the Houston Astros to the American League is a good start here.  Now both leagues have 15 teams, and each division has 5 teams.  Nice and uniform.  The next step here?  Get rid of the DH.  In some ways, the DH rule worked; it did bring more offense to the AL which was slumping attendance wise at the time.  But tell me this....how concerned can you be about attendance in the AL when only 4 years after you introduce the DH rule, your league expands by two teams.  Toronto and Seattle came aboard in 1977, thus further watering the talent pool down and creating a pair of teams that were pretty much a laughing stock for the first few years.

Time for the DH to go!  The concern about inter league play?  Useless.  Take a look at the NFL and NBA as examples of this.

The NFL merged with the AFL in 1970, when the owners got smart and finally realized that they could make more money by not having two leagues competing and bidding up salaries on high priced talent.  The rules now are uniform, and teams play the other divisions in the other conference once every 4 years.   Works for them.

The NBA merged with the ABA in 1976, after a battle for several years with both the ABA owners, and the courts (Oscar Robertson sued the NBA under antitrust laws, and the case lasted several years).  The NBA finally took on 4 of the ABA's teams after many of the others had either folded or went bankrupt.   The rules never changed in this league either. 

It's time for the AL to step up and play the same game as the NL, the way it was originally meant to be played.

The attendance problems are no more.  Will this kill a few careers? You betcha, because 14 - 15 professional hitters will be out of work.  Do I think this will happen?  No, probably not.  If it does, it will probably take a few years, and a couple of lawsuits by the MLBPA before the changes occur. 

It's sad that 4 decades after the other 3 sports merged with their "maverick leagues" and formed a cohesive sport, that baseball can't do the same.  Can anyone tell me why baseball is still stuck in 20th century mentality?


One card rule....a double shot of liquor....

Whiskey drinkers will know that CC is a double liquor card.

thanks for reading, and have a great week, Robert


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