Royals to the NL?

Interleague games with the Cubs and Cards are huge draws in KC. Lots of fans of both teams in the area.

I think it'd be fun (but I know it would never happen) to have the two centrals swap teams to look like this:

NL Central:
St. Louis
Kansas City
ChiSox
ChiCubs
Cincinnati
Cleveland

AL Central:
Minnesota
Milwaukee
Detroit
Pittsburgh

(Houston would join the AL West)

Hey, it's fun to play god with the leagues, isn't it?

 

SJ Brewers fans, help me out here.

Have any of you read anything that suggests the organization wants to move to the AL? I know I never have.

I've read accounts from fans on message boards, especially fans my age, who think the Brewers' move to the NL was misplaced Baby Boomer nostalgia for the Braves days and who feel the Brewers are an AL team first, but I've never seen anything from anyone who has any power that suggests the Brewers want to go back.

In other words, I don't know where this columnist is getting his info from.

I think any latent desire on my part to see the Brewers in the AL now is nostalgia that is misplaced as the nostalgia that put the Brewers in the NL in the first place. Just keep them where they are.

 

Pretty sure the columnist was just dismissing it as radio gossip, Bubbler.

 

It's funny what time does to your memory. How many newer fans to the game would even remember baseball without the Diamondback or the (Devil) Rays or that Milwaukee played in the American League? Even if you turn back the clock -- awesome baseball cards, by the way; I've still got my Doc Gooden -- to the realignment from four divisions to six following the Rockies' and Marlins' inception, the memory of the two-division format is foggy, at least for me.

I was watching Rookie of the Year with my dad a couple weeks ago, and because of the now-obvious gaffe in the flick, he and I tried to name the 12 National-League teams and their rightful divisions. For as long as he's watched the game, and for as much as I've studied it since I was 7, watching the A's and Reds in the World Series, we had trouble with that. We couldn't remember if the Cubs were in the East or West or where the Cardinals played. The easy ones were the Pennsylvania teams and the Mets in the East and Houston, San Diego, L.A., Atlanta and San Francisco -- because of the 1993 season -- in the West.

Imagine what's going to happen in the next 20 years -- whether we'll even have the Rays or Marlins to watch or where they'll be. I don't want anything to change, but that's the traditionalist in me. However, I'm a fan in the wild card or interleague play, though I could take it or leave it.

These are just some things I think about.

By the way, as for Rookie of the Year, which was released in July, 1993: The Cubs, who featured the strong-throwing Henry Rowengartner and veteran righty Chet Steadman, had to get through the Mets to advance to the World Series. In 1993, that wasn't a possible scenario. You can fool me for 14 years. After that, I'll make you my bitch.

 

The Seahawks got switched as well, breaking up pretty good rivalries with the Broncos and Raiders.
It's not the end of the world to switch leagues.

 

I still remember that SI story where it talked about the first weekend of interleague play. The thing that I remember most vividly (even though Baltimore and Atlanta were playing in a Preview Of The World Series that never happened) was the line "it took 12 pitches for the Pirates and the Royals to develop a rivalry."

 

I wouldn't want the Royals to move. Not at all. Less is more when it comes to the Cardinals and Cubs.

 

Trying to move the Cubs and Cards to the NL West is what got Fay Vincent ushered out the door for good.

 

I think that would be a better comparison to a potential move for the Royals because it was simply done for the sake of re-alignment.

If I remember correctly, when the Steelers, Colts and Browns moved, it was to accommodate the merger with the AFL and something drastic had to be done to even up the conferences.

 

Not really that amusing when the Braves had to take two trips to the West Coast every year. Trying to stay up and watch Braves at Dodgers, Braves at Giants or Braves at Padres on a school night six or eight times a year was absolutely treacherous ...