Where Major League Baseball Pays Attention to Me (finally)

So I woke up this morning, as I often do, to not only the sound of my cat crying right above my face, but thinking of the Orioles and their prospects for success in the future. As everyone knows, Baltimore plays in the toughest division in baseball, the AL East, where not only the red sox and yankees hold sway, but which now also features a much-improved Toronto team and a Tampa Bay team that went to the World Series last year.

I'll be the first to tell you: tough shit. It is what it is. As much as I hate the fact that we play in a division wherein we could win 90 games and still come in third place, I don't mind the challenge, and at least we can never say we won the division by default, like San Diego did in 2005 (with a .502 winning percentage). Plus, as bad as we might be, we will still pack Camden Yards (and downtown Baltimore) with idiots with disposable incomes every time the red sox and yankees come to town.

Still, it frustrates me that there will likely be no let-up in the determinable future. Unless the NY somehow stops being the most recognizable baseball franchise in the world and the symbol of Americana for many foreigners (not likely), or they for some reason decide to stop spending tons of money on good baseball players (not likely), they will be good forever. Unless Boston somehow stops hiring smart people like Bill James and Theo Epstein and running their franchise like a smart version of the yankees (not likely), they will be good forever.

So the best chance for Baltimore is to do something like Tampa Bay did last year: wait until your prospects that you have been stockpiling for years come to fruition, make a couple of smart trades to fill gaps, get extremely lucky, and hope that Boston and NY have injury problems to have a shot at it for one year. After that, everyone will be gunning for you and you won't have any money left anyway, so good luck to you. That sound is my heart breaking.

Anyway, I woke up this morning thinking about how hopeless it is to be an O's fan and also how cool it could be if there was a divisional re-alignment that went North, Central, and South instead of East, Central, and West. I figure it would work out like this:

AL North:
Boston
Toronto
Detroit
Minnesota
Seattle

AL Central:
New York
Baltimore
Chicago
Cleveland
Oakland

AL South:
Tampa Bay
Kansas City
Texas
LA Angels of wtf

How cool is that? Right now (assuming the current schedule) the standings would look like this:

AL North:

BOS     33  24 .579

TOR     33  27 .550  

DET     31  26 .544

SEA     28  29 .491

MIN     28  31 .475

AL Central:

NYA     34  23 .596

CHA     27  31 .466

OAK     26  30 .464 

CLE     25  34 .424

BAL     24  33 .421 

AL South:

TEX     33  24 .579

LAA     28  27 .509

TB      29  30 .492

KC      24  32 .429

That AL North is shaping up to be a pretty hot race down the stretch.  The AL Central is all but locked up, but the AL South
could still go a bunch of different ways.

Okay, so Baltimore would still have no chance this year, but that's not the point.  I would have to think that these divisions would be more competitive. 

That took longer to do than I thought it would.  I'll do the NL tomorrow.  NIN tonight!!!!