Jim Crane, new owner of the Houston Astros: on the verge of moving to the A.L.

As announced earlier, the Houston Astros, the team that entered the National League along with the New York Mets in 1962, will slide over to the American League right after the club’s fiftieth-anniversary celebration as an N.L. team. Two Wild Cards will be added to bring the leagues into line. These Wild Cards, as planned, would involve one-game playoffs to cap a 162-game season. Justin Verlander, A.L. Cy Young Award-winner (and MVP), has tweeted his approval. Readers of this blog, note my (Evander’s) disapproval. Major League Baseball is becoming no different from the National Hockey League, wherein just about every team, save my New York Islanders, gets a postseason chance to win the Stanley Cup. After 162 games, if the two best teams cannot be determined, then why not throw away (NBA-style) the entire season? There is nothing so clean as the best team from the A.L. facing the best in the N.L. in a seven-game World Series. The only thing I like about the announcement is the geographic rivalry created between the Texas (Will they become “The Arlington Rangers” as the Marlins now only represent Miami and not their state?) Rangers and Houston Astros. In other news, the New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles have retro uniforms for 2012. Unlike the Orioles and their exquisite phone booth of a stadium, the Mets needed to, and have announced a move of the fences inward at Citi Field. These eccentrically distant and needlessly high walls will no longer soar sixteen-feet above sea level.