"A modest proposal"

[PresHabib]

In the AL, it always seems to be the Sox, Yanks, Mariners, and A's racing for 3 playoff spots while one is left going home despite being a very good team. case in point, sox win 93 games last year and miss the playoff express. This got me thinking...what would everybody think if MLB switched back to the original 2 league (al/nl) format with no divisions and the top 4 from each league go into an NHL/NFL style seeded playoff format?

I've had this debate with a friend and it was kind of interesting...he calims that if they did that it would ruin rivalries like sox yanks or sox/d-rays...i argued that the sox/yanks rivalry will never die and that the sox/d-rays only fight beccause they throw baseballs at each other, standings are irrelevant. I also argued that it would create rivalries between the sox and a's, sox and mariners, yanks and a, yanks and mariners, maybe even all four of those teams and the twins, stuff like that. He then argued that if MLB did that there would be no interest in baseball in Minnesota, Kansas City, or Chicago this year. It kind of ended in a stale mate, but I was wondering what baseball minds in this forum (my friend is a soccer player, what does he know, lol) thought about that. I don't raelly advocate it myself, but its an entertaining thought and i was thinking it may spark an interesting debate in here. Thanks in advance for all the posts.

[pkarr5000]

nah, keep it the way it is. unless ratings are down

[G-Man]

the rivalry issue is an interesting angle in terms of popularity....it is certainly a foundation for the talks of putting a team in DC (to argue that it wouldn't kill camden yards' attendance numbers). if the o's actually land supervlad this offseason, attendance won't be a problem!

[Madison]

They decided to go with interleaue play to spark "rivalries".