Here's an idea for all major sports leagues. Eliminate divisions entirely. All teams simply play in the league. All teams have as balanced a schedule as possible (i.e. they each play each other the same amount of times). At the end of the season, rank them, 1-whatever. Have playoffs. The end. I don't really understand why in this day and age unbalanced schedules make any sense? It's not like we have teams that have to travel to Europe (except in the NFL they do that anyway!) or Asia. We're talking a 4 hour time zone change max, and with balanced schedule, everyone would be travelling similar distances.
i agree with this. divisions with today's modern chartered aircraft are stupid. keep divisions for the minor/lower leagues since they have smaller budgets. baseball always struck me as funny, how can you have a league champion when the field of play (also foul area) is not standard. seems weird but they call it charm. football and soccer are standard with strict rules and that to me is fair for the entire league.
The reason why divisions are around, and why leagues want all of them they can - is handing out Division Champion banners makes all the fanbases happy and feel like they accomplished something, even if it is the equivalent to a "participant" ribbon. Totally agree they're overblown and get in the way. You had them originally because you couldn't have teams going cross country in a bus. If I were king, I'd make it so that: MLB realign so you have 6 division of 5 Play own division 9 times (36) Play all non-division teams 5 times (125) Play one non-division team an extra game (rotating) 162 games NBA Play all teams 3 times (rotate extra home game each year), minus one division (rotating, play twice) 82 games (24*3= 72, 5*2=10) NFL Play division rivals twice play NFC division (rotating) play 2nd AFC divison (rotating) play one AFC and one NFC team that closely mirrored your division standing and record of the previous year (nearly the same as current) 16 games Divisions don't bug me as much as conferences/leagues. Utterly pointless. Let them just become arbitrary sides for the all star games.* Redo playoffs to be more like March Madness seeding. Take your division champs, take your next best teams and seed them accordingly. Done. *Or you know what? Scrap them completely, and here's your new all star weekend: Each division sends their own (limited number) All Star team and instead of a single game, there's a quick round robin All-Star tournament. NBA could be 2 quarter games MLB could be 5 innings (maybe the NFL doesn't go this route - injury risks are probably too major)
The Reds are sometimes pretty good. At any rate, I'll take Brewers, Pirates, Nationals, over Mariners, A's, Royals, Tigers, Orioles, Blue Jays, Indians, and Twins. Every day of the week and a double-header on Sunday. You're probably right. Problem is, no one in Houston needs to be concerned what the "Texas" Rangers want. Perhaps I'm in the minority (but the poll results above don't seem to say so), but I could care less about the freaking Rangers. Until very recently, they were a historically irrelevant franchise. Good for Nolie and for the Metroplex fanbase that they got it turned around and all, but still those 6 games a year against them do *nothing* for me. Besides, they are a junior circuit team. AL "baseball" sucks. I want my Astros to continue playing baseball. Not AL-ball.
Personally, I was *thrilled* when we signed RA. I wanted him over Brown. I never considered him a choker. Take an honest look at that Rockets roster (or those Suckramento rosters) and tell me if they should, on paper, have done less or more than they did. Dude's won over 800 NBA games. To my admittedly undereducated NBA fan-mind, he was one of the great coaches *before* he came. All he lacks is a ring.
If baseball is willing to go to the same rules across both leagues, strongly preferred that no DH play, I would be willing to go to the AL, though my preference is to stay in the NL even if the rules were the same.
He took the Blazers to the finals twice. Not enough people talk about that success, and he was one extremely unfortunate bounce from taking the Kings to the finals. Some people are morons, that doesn't mean everybody is. You don't have to win a title to be a great coach, and you don't have to be a great coach to win a title.
Baseball has been around way too long for something like that to ever happen. People don't want to see the Cards vs. Yankees anywhere but the WS, same with Dodgers vs Red Sox and Giants vs Tigers.
I can't imagine Crane being anything but super pissed off at the MLB, Selig and other owners if and when he is confirmed. His confirmation is being treated like a political appointment for some reason. I hope the issue holding up the approval becomes public knowledge at some point but I'm really curious as to what is the hold up. To my knowledge, there's never been an ownership/approval issue drag out like this before.
You don't think Carlisle is a great coach? If it wasn't for Ron Artest this last year would have been his second time to the finals.
Can someone explain why having five teams in each division is so important? I don't understand the idea of it being easier or harder to make the playoffs if the number of teams in your division changes. The teams with the most wins in each division go to the postseason, and the team with the second-best record that didn't win the division joins them. It shouldn't matter if you had a better record than three, four, or five teams, the best teams are going to win. When's the last time we had a really tight, four-team race for a division title? It's not like cellar-dwellers will suddenly stop being bad because we leveled the playing field. I also don't understand how we'd call them AL or NL champs when they've been playing against the other league all season long. Maybe there's something I'm not taking into account. If so, I apologize. I just don't see the benefit in changing what we have now. Also, the AL can eat it. 'Stros are a NL team. Leave it that way.
I understand due diligence....but bringing up a custody dispute that happened 10 years prior?? Really? Crane has more patience than I do...I don't think I'd like to join that little fraternity after this.
It is so hard to judge them. Rick Carlisle was a good answer, but he could be a great coach, you just don't get declared one with fewer than 10 years in the league (unless you are Phil Jackson). I certainly wouldn't consider Paul Westhead a great coach, but he has a title. And there are guys like Larry Costello that won with great players (Jabbar and Robertson), but without them struggled. Coaches fault, or lack of players?
