Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Bring back the city series.

At the 2011 annual SABR convention Eric Weiss did a presentation about the city series, which were prevalent 100 years ago.  If the two Chicago teams were not in the new World Series they might play a series between themselves and pocket all the money.  Other cities did it, too.  Maybe that would work today.

I'm writing this while Texas is playing in Tampa in the first round of MLB playoffs.  In other words, I'm killing time waiting for the Yankees to play in Detroit tonight.  Tampa and Texas.  Who the heck cares?  Not even people in Tampa.

Dump the stupid divisions.  Have American and National conference teams play only in conference.  After 162 games we'll have legitimate regular season champions and two teams that people would want to see play in the MLB finals, aka, World Series.

Here's the cool part.  ALL of the rest of the teams may then play a five game series against another team and keep all of the money, not share it with MLB, Inc.  This season, the White Sox could play the Cubs.  The Red Sox could play ... the Mets.  The Giants could play the Dodgers or even Oakland.  The only limitation: they may not schedule games at the same time as the World Series games.

Even if your team sucks it may still play a traditional rival.  Cool.  Everybody is happy.

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