Author: Shannon Shark @metspolice

I am presently speechless. Other sources will give you much better news recaps, but right now my brain has frozen. Rest up to 8 weeks? What?

Unfortunately looking forward to the apology from Amazin’ Avenue on Opening Day when the SS isn’t wearing #7. I still hope you guys turn out right, and I thought you had. Dang, this stinks.

I’m getting a kick out of these..they are fun without being jerky.

One of the things I liked about Fake New Yankee Stadium last year were the pretty colored flags on top of the stadium.   If only the Mets could do something like that…

…oh wait, we had that at Shea for all the years I was there and there were 30+ of those years.

It’s a minor point, and I’m not anti-American flag, but why can’t we have both?

Speaking of flags…this is interesting from the archives, in this article from 1961 how about this quote from someone named Tom Meany who is listed as a “baseball author”:

…put up flagstaffs for 24 pennants.  That’s how many the Dodgers and Giants won….we claim them all.

I don’t know if you saw the SI article about floating realignment:

One example of floating realignment, according to one insider, would work this way: Cleveland, which is rebuilding with a reduced payroll, could opt to leave the AL Central to play in the AL East. The Indians would benefit from an unbalanced schedule that would give them a total of 18 lucrative home dates against the Yankees and Red Sox instead of their current eight. A small or mid-market contender, such as Tampa Bay or Baltimore, could move to the AL Central to get a better crack at postseason play instead of continually fighting against the mega-payrolls of New York and Boston.

Obviously that’s a terrible idea.

Here are my choices for re-alignment, in order:

1.  Leave it alone

2.  Go back to two leagues.  No playoffs, no wild cards, no DH, the Cubs play day games and the Giants move back to Manhattan.   Obviously everyone but me hates this idea.

3.   Re-align to goose the rivalries and maximize the fun.  Years ago my fantasy football league got so big that I proposed such a scheme.  I enjoyed playing Pat more than playing Scott who I didn’t really know.  Instead of picking the schedule out of a hat, we made divisions based upon who hung out together – you played YOUR buddies, not your buddy’s friends.  Now we apply that to baseball.

“Patrick Division” (for those of you of a certain age you know what it means and yes I know Boston wasn’t in it.)

• Mets
• Yankees
• Red Sox
• Phillies
• Toronto

Toronto unfortunately has to go somewhere, and it’s not fair to keep the O’s and strand the Nats.   Mets fans can come to hate Boston and Yankees fans can learn to hate Philly.  Nice easy road-trips for 4 of the fanbases, and like I said Toronto has to go somewhere.

Incredibly Obvious Pacific Division

• Los Angeles of Los Angeles
• Los Angeles of Anaheim
• San Diego
• San Francisco
• Oakland

Is there anything to argue about here?  No.  It’s perfect.

The southwest division:

• Texas
• Houston
• Colorado
• Phoenix
• Seattle: sorry but who told you to be so far north?

This one is a little messy for the Mariners but the two Texas teams together makes sense, as do Colorado and Arizona geographically.  In 25 years the San Anotonio Mariners will love it.

The central division:

• White Sox
• Cubs
• Brewers
• Cardinals
• Royals

Not bad, right?  The Chicago fans hate each other, everyone hates a team associated with Bud Selig, the Cubs still get to hate on the Cardinals, and the Royals get dragged into some Missouri rivalry I may be making up.

The coal division

• Indians
• Reds
• Pirates
• Twins
• Tigers

The Twins are already with Detroit and Cleveland now so you can’t nitpick that.   The Reds and Indians both play in Ohio.  I can throw a frisbee from Pittsburgh to Cleveland and there’s no jumbo market in this division. Go ahead someone and win it.

Southeast division

• Braves
• Miami
• Tampa
• Baltimore
• Washington

I don’t care about any of these teams and they sort of all play down there somewhere.

That’s it.  I’m done.  You know how many tweaks I had to make?  None.  It’s just obvious if you lay it out. Believe me, I killed lots and lots of time in college classes re-aligning sports leagues.  This plan is a winner.

Schedule:

Play 18 games against your 4 division rivals = 72 games

9 games against two other divisions.  Each years these rotate, like the NFL.  = 90 games.

Total = 162 games.   All of Barry Bonds records still stand.

I will leave it to someone else to name the leagues/conferences/divisions/whatever.

Unfortunately all teams will have the DH.  That battle has been lost from here to Japan.

On twitter yesterday (@metspolice) some fans thought the Mets’ division was too tough.  What do you think of the plan?  Again my first choice is leave it alone.