How to Make Completely Unnecessary Expansion Work in Baseball

Lately there have been some rumors flying around the internet about Seattle Seahawks quarterback, Russell Wilson leading the charge to bring a major league baseball team to Portland, OR. It is unclear if MLB is seriously considering this, or why they would be considering expansion at all (j/k, them old white dudes are all about the Benjamins, baby). Even more unclear is why Portland thinks it deserves a baseball team. Do Russell Wilson and the probably old white guys bankrolling this idea think the folks in Portland can pull themselves away from crafting beers, riding bikes, and loving Fred Armisen long enough to give a shit about baseball? Maybe. My research informs me they still have an NBA team, and they don’t even suck all the time.

Serious venture or classic Russell Wilson mess around, the idea of a team in Portland got me thinking hard about what expansion might look like in baseball. It has been twenty years since Arizona and Tampa joined the league, so they are probably due to kick the tires on some new markets. There is definitely enough cash swirling around the league to support another team or two and there have to be a few cities left out there dumb enough to dump a shitload of taxpayer money into a shiny new ballpark. Let’s have some fun and take a look at how I would realign the leagues and playoffs with two new teams.

First, I added a team in Portland to the American League and a team in Montreal to the National League. Expansion has to happen in even numbers so we don’t have a team sitting around every day with no one to play. It’s easy to get away with odd numbers in hockey when teams have three or four days off a week and don’t play in series. Can you imagine your favorite team not playing at all Memorial Day weekend because they are the odd man out? Fuck that.

I also decided to plop a team down in each league just to keep things clean and because it is the only thing that makes any damn sense. Montreal seems like as good a place as any for our second fictional team. It actually makes more sense than Portland, but Montreal does not have a kind of local NFL quarterback in their corner (I’m looking at you, Doug Flutie). Expansion rumors in the past have always included Montreal and I think it would be beyond awesome to have the Expos back in our lives.

Second, my scenarios does not involve any other teams changing leagues. There are some geographical possibilities for new division that would make more sense if we just threw teams into whatever league we want, but I believe in some semblance of tradition and abhor more change than is absolutely necessary. I also did my best to keep rivalries in mind while realigning the division. New York and Boston get to keep making us all miserable with their bullshit games. The Dodgers and Giants are still in a division to continue a rivalry no one east of the Rockies cares about. The new divisions are as close to geographically perfect as I could make them. Sorry, Colorado, but be closer to other major population centers.

Alright, enough talk about the process, let’s get to it. Below I give you my new divisions in the American League. I’m just going to number them instead of giving them snazzy names like East, West, or Central because I am super lazy.

Division 1

Detroit Tigers

Toronto Blue Jays

Cleveland Indians

Chicago White Sox

Division 2

New York Yankees

Boston Red Sox

Baltimore Orioles

Tampa Bay Rays

Division 3

Minnesota Twins

Kansas City Royals

Houston Astros

Texas Rangers

Division 4

Portland Ironic Mustaches

Oakland Athletics

Seattle Mariners

California Angels of Los Angeles of Anaheim

Pretty good, huh? Houston to Minneapolis is a little trek, but no worse than them going to Seattle a bunch, so it works. This also has the added advantage of rekindling the old Tigers/Blue Jays rivalry, which was lit in the eighties. Now, the new National League.

Division 1

Montreal Expos

New York Mets

Philadelphia Phillies

Washington Expos…shit, I mean Senators…wait, Natinals…Nationals?

Division 2

Atlanta Braves

Florida Marlins of Miami

Cincinnati Reds

Pittsburgh Pirates

Division 3

Milwaukee Brewers

Chicago Cubs

St. Louis Cardinals

Colorado Rockies

Division 4

Arizona Diamondbacks

Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles

San Francisco Giants

San Diego Padres

Again, Colorado kind of gets hosed here, but I don’t really care. Don’t be the home the Avalanche. Other than that, I think we did a pretty good job. I like the idea of Montreal fans getting the chance to boo their former team as much as possible.

Now that we have our new divisions, it’s time to talk playoffs! The easy thing to do in this world would be scrapping the wild card and just have the four division winners in each league make the playoffs. While that is pretty clean, we have seen over the years of wild card games that more teams can equal more fun. We can’t screw our division winners and byes (a la the NFL) are stupid (a la the NFL). So how to do we get more teams involved? Enter what I like to call The Division Series. Wait, that’s already a thing? Okay, how about the Series to Determine the Champion of Each Division? The SDCED?

We take the top two teams from each division and have them play a best of three series to determine who wins the division and advances to the ALDS or NLDS. What makes this play-in series (or SDCED as the cool kids call it) unique? The games will be played on three consecutive days, all at the home park of the team that finished atop the standings during the regular season. This gives teams a real incentive to win the regular season and keeps as many late season races intact as possible. I’m sure The Nationals would not want to go back to the friendly confines of Montreal to get to the next round.

After the SDCED, the playoffs stay the same; best of five DS, best of seven CS and World Series. To keep the season from stretching into early December, we will shave the regular season from 162 games back to 154. This would knock a week off the regular season, giving us plenty of time for our rad, new three game sets. Sure, owners wouldn’t want to give up the gate for a handful of home games, but none of this is really likely to happen anyway so let’s keep the fantasy going.

If this new MLB seems like it was hastily thrown together in the shower by a guy with a bit too much time on his hands, just know that I take long showers, so there was plenty of time to think. Getting the laptop in there was the really tricky part. Still, I think this could actually work if Russell Wilson gets his way and Portland gets the team they have been craving for literally weeks. Or Major League Baseball could do the smart thing and just leave everything the way it is, because right now baseball is pretty fucking perfect. 

Of Country Music and Couches

Part I – The meet

As some of you may know, I am friends with Dustin Lewis Johnston. Some would even call it a bromance. This is our story.

I started dating Alexa Stevenson, now my wife, in 2002. We dated all through senior year of high school and through college, eventually getting married in 2009. In 2006 Alexa started working at Honey Creek Community School in the after school childcare program. In the summer she also worked as a counselor for the summer camp program. After I graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 2008 with my useless degree in Journalism, I began substitute teaching at various schools in Washtenaw County, including Honey Creek where I also worked in the after school childcare program. When the school year ended I did as Alexa did and worked the summer camp program.

Alexa worked with the younger age group and had a room partner named Sarah Mancos. They hit it off pretty quickly and we all ended up becoming fast friends and spent a fair amount of time together that summer and into the fall.

Alexa frequently pet-sat for a number of people in those days. Often this left me home alone over a weekend. One particular weekend, Alexa was pet-sitting in Ann Arbor. I was home primarily to take care of our dog, Lucy. Sarah, knowing that Alexa was animal sitting and that I was home alone, sent me a text. She basically wanted to know if I wanted to meet her, her roommate Tori, and her friend Dustin at the Diamondback Saloon in Belleville. At the time, Alexa and I were living in Belleville less than a quarter mile from said saloon.

I had many reasons to object to this meetup. First, it was live country music/hip hop dance night at the saloon. If you know me, you know that these are two of my least favorite things (not to mention that the saloon would be populated with the local flavor, not a point in this meetups favor). Second, Sarah wanted me to meet someone new. I do not like meeting new people. Third, this new person’s name was Dustin. My reply to Sarah was that there was no way I was going to like this guy. I mean, his name was Dustin. She informed me that I would definitely like this guy. Even though his name was Dustin.

Anyway, I was somehow convinced to go (quarter beer night or something like that) and I met them all at the saloon. We walked in, bombarded by honky tonk and an ever-loving ton of people wearing cowboy getups. There was a cover to enter (strike four on the night). We somehow squeezed our way to a tiny table and sat down and ordered a beer. I sat there awkwardly, hating Sarah, the music, everything. I looked around for anything to distract me from the terrible situation I found myself in. My eyes eventually located a tiny TV showing that evening’s Detroit Tiger game. I had found my out. I decided then and there that I would ignore everyone and focus on the game. (These were heady days to be a Tigers fan. Although they had just come off a last place finish the year before, there were many reasons to be optimistic).

Sarah, attempting to make me be friends with Dustin, brought up the fact that he also liked the Tigers. So we started to chat. And we kept chatting. Then we started to make fun of the people there. Then we wondered why the waitress never ended up coming back. Then we applied pressure to leave the hell-hole they call the Diamondback Saloon. Eventually, Dustin and I won out and we all decided to go to a local favorite, Sidetrack in Ypsilanti.

Once we arrived at the new bar, Dustin and I were able to talk freely without shouting over a most hateful din. While the specific contents of that evenings discussion have been lost to the fog of time, I can hazard a guess that it revolved around baseball and our affinity for movies from the 80’s and early 90’s. After that night, I figured I’d see Dustin around here and there but didn’t really make an attempt on my own to spend time with him. And that was exactly what happened.

We would hang out exclusively when Sarah brought us together. I don’t even think I had Dustin’s phone number. However, things would take a turn the following spring/summer.

Part II – The deepening

That next summer saw the dissolution of Sarah rooming with Tori. I think Tori was moving south for a job. But that doesn’t matter. Sarah ended up needing some help moving some of the larger items from her apartment to the rental truck, then from the rental truck to her new apartment. She called Dustin and myself. We arrived at her apartment ready to go. The major piece of furniture was a three cushion sleeper-sofa. That beast was a real bastard to move. Especially since Sarah lived at the end of a long hallway on the second floor. And on top of that, the stairs were in that awful spiral design, as most apartment staircases are. Well, Dustin and I just about died getting that stupid couch down to the truck. Little did we know, it would get worse. Far, far worse.

We arrived at her new apartment, ignorant to the fact that we would soon be risking our lives in the interest of helping our friend have a place to sit in the new place. We started to unload the truck. As we moved some smaller items into the apartment, we both began to wonder just how we would get that couch around the tight corners of this tiny building. Eventually, we just had to bite the bullet and get it done. We hoisted the monster, squeezed through the main building door, started up the steps, and crunch. The couch was wider than the stairway.

With tears of foreboding in our eyes, we steeled our resolve, heaved the villainous apparatus above the handrail, and almost collapsed from the effort. Using the handrail as a sort of runway, we pushed and pulled until the mighty behemoth was…at the first landing. We had at least another half set of stairs to conquer, then a tight left into the apartment. Somehow, and this is all a blur, we made it into the apartment where we both collapsed in exhaustion.

We hooked Sarah’s TV up to the cable in the vain hope that something would come through. Much to our surprise, something did. It was PBS. Airing was a documentary on Roy Orbison (he of “Pretty Woman” fame). Dustin and I were enthralled. That night, we both went home and promptly downloaded Roy Orbison’s greatest hits. We discovered this fact the next time we hung out. It was the first of many moments that would prove we were destined to be friends.

Here are some other moments of synchronicity: We had a “deep” talk at a Taco Bell in Kalamazoo on our way to Chicago for one of the best trips I’ve ever been on (Taco Burrito King, Longmire!, lights, jumping beans, the Green Knight (aka Brandon Inge) and so much more). We’ve traveled North where Dustin never escapes without some sort of injury (inge-ury?). We touched (shoe) tips at a bar while crossing our legs at the same time. I didn’t help Dustin move after he tore his Achilles tendon. I did save his life when he had a kidney stone. He got me a job at Lake Trust Credit Union where it has turned into a career (and for which I am forever grateful). It’s been less than 10 years, but it sure feels like 20. Let the bromance never die!

Fuck that couch.

How Heavy Metal and Roy Orbison Spawned the Great Bromance of the 21st Century

The history of manhood is peppered with the awesome power of deep male camaraderie known today as the bromance. Butch and Sundance, Tramm and Sweet Lou, KITT and Michael Knight; all prime examples of revered brotherhood. What follows is a brief telling of the genesis of this century’s great bromance and the awesome forces that forged an unbreakable bond.

           

A number of years ago, on a night between April and October, I was invited to have a drink with a friend. Unfortunately, this is as narrow as I can make the time frame, and it can only be narrowed this much because a Detroit Tigers baseball game plays an important role in our story. 

           

Anyway, this friend who invited me out had a friend named Kevin who lived near the bar we were attending. Kevin’s wife was out of town for the weekend so he was flying solo and would be joining us. Being naturally skeptical and leery of new people, I wasn’t too sure about this Kevin guy, but I figured what the hell, it was something to do.

           

This is a good time to set the scene of this now historic meeting. The bar was a complete and utter shithole full of complete and utter shitheads. Just imagine the bar from Roadhouse without Swayze, Sam Elliott, or the blind guy who played guitar. Later we would laugh about the fact that we met in a bar neither one of us could stand, but at the time I thought there was no way I would have anything in common with a person who wanted to attend this shitty, shitty bar.

           

The night unfolded much like I thought it might, awkward silences broken by even more awkward small talk. Where do you work? Where did you go to school? How about that current local weather forecast? Mostly bullshit like that. We were marching towards a night of full on social awkwardness when the clouds parted and a brilliant light shone on a TV in the corner featuring the Tigers game.

           

“Oh, you like baseball,” I said.

           

“Indeed I do,” he responded.

           

“And you drink beer?”

           

“I have been known to drink a beer from time to time.”

           

The exact wording may have been slightly different, but you get the idea. The rest of the night was full of baseball talk and beer drinking. While a friendship was born that night, the seed of bromance would not be planted until that mutual friend who brought us together at the non-blind-guitar-player having bar decided to move.

           

Faced with the task of moving all her shit, this friend set out to find a couple strong men to carry the load. Unsuccessful, she turned to me and Kevin instead. The move was standard fare until we came to the couch. This was a big, stupid couch with a big, stupid foldout bed inside that was constructed of some very heavy metal (HA! You thought I was talking about the music genre in the title, but what I really meant was a metal frame that was not light. Man, you should see your face! I got you good!).

           

Honestly, this couch could have been stuffed with Rob Halford, Lemmy, and all the guys from Pantera for how heavy the damn thing was. We managed to get it down from the second floor apartment and into the truck without much trouble. We felt pretty confident in our moving abilities until we got to her new building and the challenge really began. This building was old as hell and was apparently designed for hobbits. Picture the stairway in The Godfather Part II where Robert De Niro shoots Don Fanucci with that pistol that had been wrapped in like 17 towels to muffle the sound. This stairway was like a skinnier version of that one.

           

A few years ago, a 7mm kidney stone lodged itself in my ureter and caused me all kinds of pain and misery. The couch was that building’s kidney stone and it took all our energy and effort to force it up the ureter stairway. We struggled and bitched and pissed and moaned all the way up until the Pantera couch from hell was through the apartment door and safely in its new home. They say unbreakable bonds are born from times that try men’s souls. Soldiers who go on to live different lives in different parts of the country can come together fifty years later and know that link they forged in battle is still strong as ever. Our battlefield was a stairway, our enemy was a couch.

           

Exhausted in our victory, we fell triumphantly onto that jerk couch. As a reward for our efforts, we plugged in the TV for a little entertainment. PBS was literally the only channel that would come in so we hunkered down to watch a documentary about the late, great Roy Orbison. The show quickly transformed from background sound into an interesting program that we watched the shit out of. The next day, independent of each other, Kevin and I both procured the same Roy Orbison hits compilation and became fans of the legendary singer. The seeds of bromance were firmly planted. We still text each other any time we catch an Orbison special on TV. I would highly recommend Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night, you will like some of his friends.

           

Over the ensuing years our friendship grew, strengthened by a road trip to Chicago where we screamed Pink Floyd songs and almost went off the road laughing at a stupid inside joke (thanks a lot, SK!). Trips up north, shitty action movies, baseball, and more PBS deepened a bond that was cemented by a trip to the emergency room to deal with that previously mentioned kidney stone. All these things, and many more, have been important parts of the bromance that all started with that fucking couch and Mr. Roy Orbison.