national league pride

Spring Training and the World Baseball Classic are both in full swing, and baseball season is right around the corner. As always, I am excited, but there's a bit of heaviness to this new season, for now a long-promised and dreaded change is becoming reality: starting this season, my Houston Astros will be an American League franchise.

I came across a mostly completed yet unpublished blog post I composed when the league switch was rumored but not yet announced. I thought about scrapping it and updating it, but the words I wrote were like the screams of someone who's just been in a fight, while my resigned feelings now are those of someone who has been through the five stages of grief.

I decided I'd go ahead and make this a two-parter: today I will go ahead and post my musings from when the news was still fresh, and tomorrow (or sometime soon) I will post my reflections as of today. So, what follows in my thoughts of the Astros switching leagues as of 2011:

I've been an Astros fan all my life, but I really started following the team when I was in junior high. The first year I can remember checking the newspaper for scores everyday and keeping my radio constantly tuned to 740AM was 1998, which happened to be the first year the Astros played in a six team division. Arizona and Tampa Bay began play in the NL and AL respectively, and the Milwaukee Brewers shifted over to National League to even the leagues. I recall reading an article about how the Astros were going to play seven teams they never had that year: the Brewers, the Diamondbacks, and the five American League Central teams in newly-established interleague play.

Growing up as an Astros fan in the late 1990s, it was a good time to be a fan. The Bagwell-Biggio era was in full swing and the team was winning division titles like clockwork. But as a fan in the 90s, there was one team that was The Dark Side, the villains who deserved destruction more than anyone else:

The Atlanta Braves.

Houston made it to the playoffs in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2001. Every year but 1998 they faced the Braves in the first round, and they won a grand total of one game against the Braves in those three series. Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz... I hated them all.

But in 2004 and 2005, the Astros turned the tables and bested Atlanta, making it into the NL Championship Series. Both of those occasions Houston faced St. Louis, losing in 2004 and winning in 2005. But in '05, even though the Astros ultimately won, Albert Pujols caused one of the deepest wounds in Houston sports history with his Game 5 home run at Minute Maid Park. Personally, I think that if that home run hadn't happened, the Astros would've won the World Series (or at least not been swept).

So the two teams that I hated were the St. Louis Cardinals and the Atlanta Braves. (I actually hate the Chicago Cubs even more, but that's more due to their obnoxious fan base than anything on the field.)

I don't like the Texas Rangers, but they're pretty inconsequential to me. They've always been that team in the other league that people in north Texas like. Their success or failure doesn't move me very much.

Of course, my Houston Astros are now on the verge of having a precious piece of their identity stripped away from them. Effective 2013, the Astros will play American League baseball. That shift of the Brewers to the NL is now seen as a mistake, and the perceived solution is to have two American League teams in Texas.

I understand the logic behind the move. Really, I do: I get the arguments concerning fair scheduling and travel times. I even understand the Astros-Rangers rivalry argument, even though I disagree with it. But it's painfully, woefully unfair- nay, unjust.

I shall now offer my rebuttals for why this is an injustice to Astros fans:

1) THE "USING THE DH ISN'T A BIG DEAL" ARGUMENT

I'm also a fan of Houston's soccer team, the Houston Dynamo. (I know, I know, Major League Soccer is kind of a joke, but I'm into it. So sue me.) This season the Dynamo changed conferences, moving from the Western Conference to the Eastern Conference. I didn't even blink at that change. Why is that not a big deal, but this is?

Simple. Many leagues (the NBA, the NHL, etc) arrange their teams based solely on geography. Not so in MLB, and the reason goes back generations - the American League and the National League were rival leagues who merged. The World Series was a way of determining not only what team was best, but which league was superior - let's take Our Best Team against Your Best Team and see who wins. That heritage continues today, even with the league offices being abolished and interleague play happening in the regular season.

So now, we're supposed to just switch who we root for in the All Star Game? Our players will try to measure up to historic American League heroes in the statistics?

A lot of what I've read focuses on the issue of the Designated Hitter. Make no mistake - I hate the DH and I think it's fake baseball. But let's say a contingency of the switch was that starting in 2013 MLB will abolish the designated hitter rule. Even in this scenario, I still don't want my team to play American League baseball. It's a different culture altogether. I like being in the league with the longer history, the league without the Yankees and Red Sox grabbing all the headlines. I like watching the Dodgers, the Giants, the Cardinals, the Phillies - in some sense, these teams are family to my Astros. It's not so much that I dislike the Orioles or the Tigers or the Angels - I just don't care about them.

2) THE "NOW WE'LL HAVE A REGIONAL RIVALRY" ARGUMENT

If it's such a big deal that Rangers and Astros play in the same division, let's just dissolve the whole league arrangement altogether. One possible solution:

CALIFORNIA DIVISION: Anaheim, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego

WEST DIVISION: Houston, Arizona, Seattle, Texas, Colorado

LAKES DIVISION: Milwaukee, Chi. Cubs, Detroit, Minnesota, Chi. Sox

CENTRAL DIVISION: St. Louis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Kansas City

NORTHEAST DIVISION: Toronto, NY Mets, Philadelphia, Boston, NY Yankees

SOUTHEAST DIVISION: Atlanta, Miami, Washington, Baltimore, Tampa Bay

This isn't perfect either - I've split up the Cardinals and Cubs, which breaks up a nice existing rivalry. I've also split the two Pennsylvania teams - OH WAIT THAT'S HOW IT IS NOW AND NOBODY CARES.

(Incidentally, the Pirates and Phillies are the exception that prove the rule. Originally, the Athletics were also based in Philadelphia, meaning there was a split AL/NL market in Philly. When the A's moved to Kansas City, neither of the remaining Pennsylvania teams switched leagues because that would've been ridiculous.)

In fact, one of the charming things about Major League Baseball in my opinion is that, aside from the Pirates and Phillies, you have a team from each league in the mixed markets, like yins to the yangs. The Dodgers have the Angels, the Giants have the Athletics, the Cardinals have the Royals, the Cubs have the White Sox, the Reds have the Indians, the Marlins have the Rays, the Nationals have the Orioles, the Mets have the Yankees... and the Astros have the Rangers.

It's kind of nice for those outside of the main markets, because they can, to some degree, have two teams - lots of Texans roots for both the Astros and the Rangers, a stance you can take when they play in separate leagues. And maybe this is just a pipe dream, but everybody in these split markets dreams of having a World Series featuring their two representatives. Only New York and the San Francisco Bay Area have experienced it in recent memory (though Chicago and St. Louis have as well), but lots of Texans dream of an All-Texas World Series. The two teams could never get their act coordinated enough to make it a realistic possibility. In 1998 and 1999 both teams made it to the playoffs, but both exited in the first round. The Rangers then went through years of futility while the Astros were perennial contenders, and lately the Texas is one of the best teams in the majors while Houston is mired in the bottom of the standings.

Now, barring the Astros making the most shocking turnaround in MLB history and the Rangers pulling off an AL three-peat, we'll just never know. [ED. NOTE, 2013: We'll just never know.]

3) THE "YOU'LL LEARN TO LOVE IT" ARGUMENT

This is probably the one that aggravates me the most. I've read multiple writers talking about how the Astros-Rangers rivalry just HAS to become a great rivalry (even though they already play each other every year). Rob Neyer makes the strange point that if the Astros and Rangers face in a pennant race, it'll breed a great competition.

Well, news flash: Let's say that in four or five years, the Astros and Mariners start running neck-and-neck in the division and knock each other out of the playoffs several years in a row. Guess what happens? We suddenly have a fiery, dynamic Seattle-Houston rivalry, and it has nothing to do with geography.

So there will be a generation of Houston baseball fans here in about a decade that knows nothing but American League baseball and loves it. That's probably true. There's a generation of Houston football fans that knows nothing but the Texans and loves that team; that doesn't erase the fact that many Houstonians still mourn the Oilers and snarl if you so much as mention Bud Adams's name. I hope Jim Crane gets booed off the field when he makes his first appearance as owner at Minuted Maid Park - not so much because he deserves it himself, but because I don't expect Bud Selig will be making an appearance anytime soon.

I'll admit, I'll probably learn to live with the Astros playing AL baseball. People in Montréal are learning to live without a baseball team at all. My wife's car recently broke down and we had to buy a new one, but I've learned to live with making those monthly car payments. If my left arm gets chopped off in a horrific accident, I'll probably learn how to live with that disability. WE CAN COPE WITH ANYTHING, PEOPLE.

4) THE "THIS HAS TO BE DONE NOW" ARGUMENT

So, apparently it's a pressing necessity that we have two wild card teams in each league now? And that makes it a pressing need that we move a team? When did this happen?

It literally feels like someone got this idea in his head overnight and never stopped talking about it until everybody else was onboard. Why do we need a second wild card team in each league? We have compelling, dramatic playoff series without it! We don't need another gimmick to ge people interested. That'd be like adding five more nominees to the "Best Picture" Oscar Category or something ridiculous like that.

Incidentally, let's do a little thought experiment. [2013 ED. NOTE: Remember, I wrote this before the sale of the Astros was complete.] Let's say Jim Crane and MLB can't get a deal done and the sale falls apart, and then Drayton McLane reconsiders and decides he wants to hold onto ownership of the team for the foreseeable future. The next team for sale is the LA Dodgers, another National League franchise. So, DO WE BELIEVE that MLB makes it a stipulation for the new buyer of the Dodgers that he or she MUST move the team the AL West in order to buy? After all, the Astros can slide to the NL West and we'll have six five team divisions, plus we have that nifty "natural rivalry" with the Angels now! IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE, RIGHT? SURELY MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL WOULD PUSH THAT THROUGH, RIGHT???

Sigh.

I'll conclude with the one quote I've read in any article that really made me spitting mad. Here it is, courtesy of Jon Paul Morosi of Fox Sports, who favors the switch:

"That the franchise effectively sold its NL identity for the sum of $70 million tells you something about how much it mattered in the first place."

No, Mr. Morosi, you're dead wrong. $70 million tells you how much MLB wants even leagues. $70 million tells you how much Drayton McLane wanted to move on and how much Jim Crane wanted to purchase a team.

$70 million does NOT tell you how much league identity means to the Houston fans. The Astros fan base did not put a nifty little price tag on fifty years of tradition. It was arm-wrestled away from us, and now we're stuck with it. Yeah, we can live with it - I'm an Astros fan before I'm a National League fan, and I'll follow my team to a new style of play. But it won't be the same, and it'll feel that much more hollow.

Thanks a lot, Bud. Hope the new alignment works out for ya. I'm going to go sit somewhere and reminisce about the Bagwell and Biggio days.