ELItorial: For the sake of the game, keep the leagues

One of the few elements of baseball that has remained intact throughout the history of the sport is its division into two distinct and identifiable groupings of teams. The differences in style of play in these leagues is one of the things that gives baseball its unique charm.

Of course, similar disparities in style exist in all major professional sports. In the National Football League the AFC has always been associated with a more open, offensive approach to the game, while the NFC has relied on more rugged defense and offensive efficiency. In the National Basketball Association, the Western Conference games produce final scores of 100 or more, while Eastern Conference wars are lucky to even break 80.

Baseball's two leagues are even more sharply delineated than these. Both the NFL and the NBA conferences have a common set of rules and a group of referees that enforces these rules in both conferences. Interconference matchups have been a standard element in both leagues since their inception, and as a result, a game between the New York Knicks and the Houston Rockets does not carry any particularly special meaning.

In baseball, the two leagues operate under two completely different sets of guidelines both written and unwritten, and these rules are maintained by two distinct sets of umpires who keep the differences very much intact. Thus we have the strong pitching, defense, and strategy of the Senior Circuit while the smaller strike zones, designated hitters, and high scoring affairs of the current American League play.

As is true for all of the recent changes to our National Pastime, the radical realignment plan is motivated by a desire for greater revenue in the short term. Consider the addition of the wild card playoff teams and the advent of interleague play as examples.

When ownership voted to implement the wild card system in determining playoff games, it was sharply criticized in many circles for simply being greedy and wanting to add to the phenomenal revenue potential of the post-season contests.

Unlike the current realignment proposal, however, in this instance the actual benefit to the sport was clear: more playoff teams equaled far greater and more sustainable fan interest at a time when baseball was indeed struggling for public support. The experiment has worked very well thus far, as evidenced by the excitement generated by the New York Yankees and the Seattle Mariners in 1995.

The institution of interleague play this season has also been a financial boon for the owners, as ticket sales have been markedly higher on average for interleague competition. The games were such a success because they were such a novelty. It was exciting for fans to be a part of history as the two teams from New York or the two teams from Chicago squared off for the first time ever, and that excitement turned into revenue.

Though another tradition was trampled, it was odd how excitedly I watched as the Mets faced the Yankees. Were the Yankees and Mets to play 15 games each year, as the new plan would allow, I would soon not view a contest against the Yanks any differently than I now view one against the Mets' current National League rivals, the Atlanta Braves and the Florida Marlins.

The idea of radical realignment may be somewhat intriguing from the perspective of creating new rivalries, but this is not a sufficient justification to completely discard the last remnant of baseball tradition. Even the calendar play phenomenon was not nearly as successful in the small markets such as Minnesota--there is no reason to believe that a drastic reshuffling of the two leagues would generate any different response there.

Once the initial excitement and quirkiness dissipates, baseball will be left with two nondescript entities where the National and American leagues once stood. I hope the owners realize that baseball is, at its core, a sport built on history and tradition, and there is a point when the quest for revenue must be put on hold for the preservation of the spirit of the game.

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