Notre Dame’s Long Absence From Minnesota

During my trip to Minnesota, I found out that Notre Dame has not played football against Minnesota since 1938.  As far as I can tell, we haven’t played a game in the state of Minnesota since playing Minnesota on the road in 1937.  Obviously, Minnesota is not a premier college football program, but not playing them since the 1930s seems like too long.  Using the Alexander Bess Notre Dame Football Database, I discovered that out of all the Power 4 teams that we’ve played (and we’ve played most of them), we have played every other team more recently than Minnesota.

The other inspiration for this blog post is that there’s been some news in the last couple of days about college football scheduling.  The SEC is changing to a nine-game conference schedule starting next year.  It seems like most college football fans like this.  I actually don’t.  Why?  First of all, I’d rather have more good non-conference games.  And second, an even number makes much more sense.  An eight-game conference schedule means four home and four away.  Nine means that you have a four/five split between home and away.  But the other SEC scheduling news was good.  SEC teams will have to play at least one team from the ACC/Big 10/Big 12/Notre Dame per year.  I would much rather have the power conferences playing eight conference games and at least two power conference opponents in their non-conference games.  And people have noted that the ACC will be the only Power 4 conference with eight conference games and it is mathematically impossible for them to go to nine because they have 17 teams.  That brings up another issue with college football scheduling.  These conferences are way too big.  You’re not going to play a lot of the teams in your conference each year.  For me, the ideal number of teams in a conference is 0 because conferences are stupid.  But if you’re going to have conferences, the right number of teams is 12.  You split the conference into two divisions and you play everybody in your division each year and you play half of the other division each year.  And these conferences all used to have 12 teams at some point (not necessarily at the same time).  If only we could make these conferences smaller and add a fifth power conference out west with 12 teams.

Anyway, there are going to be some SEC teams that need to schedule a good non-conference game for each season.  Notre Dame should definitely get in on that.  We actually have a lot of SEC games coming up over the next decade (starting with Texas A&M and Arkansas this year).  But we should schedule more games against SEC teams.  There are four SEC teams that we’ve never played so we should get them on the schedule.  There are three Big 12 teams that we’ve never played and we’ve played everybody in the Big 10 and ACC.  Here are my rankings of teams by conference in terms of how much I want to see them on Notre Dame football schedules:

Big 10

1. USC- We should play them every year as long as there isn’t the worst war in history or the deadliest pandemic in a century going on.  We started playing them in 1927 and we’ve played every year except for 1943-1945 and 2020.  But it seems like Lincoln Riley only wants to play us as long as there are no consequences for USC when we beat them. As much as I despise Pete Carroll, he would not be afraid to play anybody. USC absolutely cannot give this guy what he wants when it comes to having Notre Dame on the schedule. He won’t be there that long anyway. We’re 52-38-5 against USC all time.

2. Michigan State- They’re our biggest rival from the Big Ten other than USC.  We’ve played them 79 times (49-29-1).  We played them almost every year from 1948-2017 (there were some short breaks in there).  We haven’t played them since 2017.  They should be on the schedule more often.

3. Ohio State- I want to keep playing them until we finally beat them.  We beat them in 1935 and 1936 and we’re 0-7 against them since then (all during my lifetime).

4. UCLA- We should immediately schedule a two-game series with them if Lincoln Riley ends the Notre Dame-USC series because he’s a coward.  I think we’ve only played two games all time in the Rose Bowl stadium (the 1925 Rose Bowl and at UCLA in 2007) so playing there again would be cool.  But if USC brought in new leadership that wasn’t afraid of playing Notre Dame, that would drop UCLA several spots.  We’re 4-0 against them all time.

5. Oregon- They’re one of the best teams of this century that hasn’t won a national championship.  We’re 1-0-1 against them all time and we haven’t played them since 1982.

6. Washington- We’re 8-0 against them all time.  I was there for our last game against them in 2009.  They’re another west coast team to play if Lincoln Riley ends our series with USC.

7. Nebraska- They’re a college football blue blood that we haven’t played since 2001.  We’re 7-8-1 against them all time so it would be good to play a two-game series and win both to have a winning record against them.

8. Purdue- They’re a less interesting version of Michigan State.  We’ve played them 88 times (60-26-2).  We spanked them last year and we play them again this year.

9. Michigan- I want nothing to do with them because they tried to destroy Notre Dame football because Fielding Yost was an anti-Catholic bigot.  We lost to them the first eight times we played them.  Then we beat them in 1909 and they refused to play us again until 1942.  But that’s not all they did.  They tried to get other schools to refuse to play us also.  Then we beat them in 1943 and they refused to play us again until 1978.  Also, they are obnoxious cheaters.  They would be much lower on the list if not for the fact that we got a classic Brian Kelly loss (an embarrassing performance in a big game) the last time we played them (2019).  They’re on the schedule for 2033 and 2034.  We need to win those two games and then I would be fine with never scheduling them again.  We’re 18-25-1 against them all time.  But we have a winning record against them since starting 0-8 (those first eight games were played from 1887-1908).

10. Minnesota- They rank this high because Lou Holtz coached there and we haven’t played them since 1938.  We’re 4-0-1 against them.

11. Iowa- We played them pretty regularly for a while, but we haven’t played them since 1968.  We’re 13-8-3 against them all time

12. Wisconsin- They would be higher, but we’ve played them more recently (2021) than most of the teams above them and we’re playing them again next year.  We’re 9-6-2 against them all time.

13. Illinois- We’re 11-0-1 against them and we last played them in 1968.

14. Northwestern- We’re 38-9-2 against them and we last played them in 2018.  Ara Parseghian coached there so we have that connection with them.

15. Indiana- We beat them in the playoff last year and they’re on the schedule for 2030 and 2031, but they are playing the softest possible non-conference schedules so I wouldn’t be shocked if they tried to get out of those.  We’re 24-5-1 against them all time.

16. Rutgers- We’re 5-0 against them all time and I was there the last time we played them (the 2013 Pinstripe Bowl).  The teams above Rutgers on the list are either already on the schedule in the future or I would want to get them on the schedule in the future.  Rutgers and below are not on future schedules and I don’t have any interest in getting them on the schedule.

17. Maryland- We’re 2-0 against them and I was there when we last played them in 2011.

18. Penn State- Their worship of Joe Paterno is gross and I want nothing to do with them.  We’re 10-9-1 against them and our last meeting with them was my favorite sporting event that has taken place on my birthday.

SEC

1. Texas- We’re 9-3 against them and we last played them in 2016.  They’re on the schedule for 2028 and 2029.

2. Alabama- We’re 5-3 against them and we last played them in the 2021 Rose Bowl (one of two Rose Bowl games all time that wasn’t played in the Rose Bowl).  They’re on the schedule for 2029 and 2030.

3. LSU- Beating Brian Kelly would be wonderful.  We’re 7-5 against them all time and we last played them in the 2018 Citrus Bowl.

4. Florida- We have only played them in the 1992 Sugar Bowl.  They’re on the schedule for 2031 and 2032.

5. Auburn- We’ve never played them.  They’re the most interesting team that we’ve never played.

6. Tennessee- We haven’t played them since I was a student (2005).  We’re 4-4 against them all time.

7. Oklahoma- We’re 9-2 against them and I was there the last time we played them in 2013 (sadly, one of the two losses).

8. Georgia- They would rank higher, but we’ve played them in the regular season recently and we just beat them in the Sugar Bowl last season.  We needed that win because we were 0-3 against them before that.

9. Ole Miss- We’re 1-1 against them and we last played them in 1985.

10. Texas A&M- They would be higher, but we beat them last year and we play them again this year.  We’re 4-2 against them.

11. Missouri- We’re 2-2 against them and we last played them in 1984.

12. Arkansas- I guess I would rank them higher because we’ve never played them, but they are on the schedule for this year and 2028.  Lou Holtz coached there so it’s cool that we’re finally going to play them.

13. Vanderbilt- They’re an SEC team that actually cares about academics so I couldn’t put them all the way at the bottom.  We’re 3-0 against them all time and we last played them in 2018.

14. Kentucky- They’re not that interesting, but we’ve never played them before so let’s get them on the schedule.

15. South Carolina- They would be higher as a former Lou Holtz school, but we beat them recently in the Gator Bowl in 2022.  We’re 4-1 against them.

16. Mississippi State- I’m putting them last because they’re just not interesting (unless Mike Leach was still around), but we’ve never played them so let’s get them on the schedule.

Big 12

1. TCU- We won our only meeting with them in 1972.  It’s a Texas school so I say we should get them on the schedule.

2. Oklahoma State- The only time we played them was Marcus Freeman’s first game as head coach (the 2022 Fiesta Bowl).  They rank this high because we lost and we could potentially play a couple of games against them and have a winning record against them all time (this is a theme that’s going to come up again).

3. Cincinnati- We’re 1-1 against them with a win in 1900 and a loss in 2021 that got Cincinnati to the playoff and kept us out.

4. UCF- We’ve never played them.  They’re a Florida school so I’d be cool with getting them on the schedule.

5. Texas Tech- We’ve never played them.  They’re not as interesting to me as TCU so that’s why I have them a little lower on the list.

6. Kansas State- We’ve never played them and they’ve had a pretty good program this century.  Also, I’m mad at them because they might have cost us a national championship by losing to Baylor in 2012 (we would have played Kansas State instead of Alabama if Kansas State had won that game).

7. Houston- We won our only meeting with them in the 1979 Cotton Bowl (the Joe Montana Chicken Soup Game).

8. Arizona- We’re 2-1 against them all time.  They rank ahead of the next few teams because our last meeting was before my lifetime (1982).

9. Utah- We won our only game against them in 2010.  It’s another western school that we could play if Lincoln Riley is too scared to play us.

10. BYU- We’re 7-2 against them and we last played them in 2022.

11. Arizona State- We’re 3-1 against them and we last played them in 2014.

12. Colorado- We’re 3-2 against them and we last played them in the 1995 Fiesta Bowl.

13. West Virginia- We’re 4-0 against them and we last played them in 2001.  If we had a two-game series against them, that would be the best possible sporting event I could go to in West Virginia (one of the five states where I haven’t seen a sporting event).  Also, we beat them in the 1989 Fiesta Bowl to win the 1988 National Championship so that would bring back fun memories for Notre Dame fans old enough to remember (sadly, I am not).

14. Baylor- We’re 2-0 against them and we last played them in 1998.  I would be interested in scheduling all the teams above Baylor.  I really don’t care about the two teams below.  I’m indifferent to Baylor (if they weren’t in Texas, I would have zero interest).

15. Kansas- We’re 4-1-1 against them and we last played in 1999.

16. Iowa State- We won our only meeting with them in 2019 in the Camping World Bowl.  If we’re going to put a team from Iowa on the schedule, I would definitely take Iowa over Iowa State.

ACC- They’re a little different because we play all of these teams regularly with our scheduling agreement with the ACC.  The scheduling agreement began in 2014.  SMU, Cal, and Stanford were not part of the ACC until last year, but we’ve played Stanford way too much and we did play Cal recently also.

1. Miami- We’re 18-8-1 against them and we open the season with them.  They’re in Florida and this was once a heated rivalry.

2. Florida State- We’re 6-6 against them (and we’ve won our last four meetings).  There’s some history between Notre Dame and Florida State, but not quite as much as we have with Miami.

3. Clemson- We’re 3-5 against them and we’re starting a 12-year series with them in 2027.

4. North Carolina- We’re 21-2 against them.  They would rank last because of 18 years of fake classes (and like Michigan, not getting appropriately punished by the NCAA), but I want to beat Bill Belichick.  I’m not convinced that he’ll be there very long.

5. Georgia Tech- We’re 31-6-1 against them.  So we have a pretty good amount of history with them, but they’re kind of like the ACC version of Purdue.  On the other hand, it’s good to play in Georgia for recruiting.

6. Boston College- We’re 18-9 against them.  It was 9-9.  So we’ve been dominating lately.  That’s the way it should be.  I like playing the only other Catholic school in the FBS.  We should just beat them all the time.

7. Pittsburgh- We’re 51-21-1 against them.  We’ve been playing all the ACC teams the same amount (although that’s going to change with the Clemson series).  I wish we could play Pittsburgh and above on this list (except for North Carolina, they’re only that high because of Belichick) more frequently than we play the rest of the ACC.

8. Louisville- We’re 3-2 against them.  For a while, this was a really good basketball rivalry.

9. SMU- We’re 10-3 against them and we last played them in 1989.  They’re on the schedule for 2026.

10. NC State- We’re 2-2 against them.  We might have a winning record against them if Brian Kelly didn’t try to pass 26 times in a hurricane (we averaged 2.1 yards per attempt).  They’re another former Lou Holtz school.

11. Virginia- We’re 5-0 against them.

12. Virginia Tech- We’re 3-1 against them.

13. Syracuse- We’re 8-3 against them.

14. Cal- We’re 5-0 against them.

15. Duke- We’re 6-2 against them.

16. Wake Forest- We’re 6-0 against them.

17. Stanford- We’re 24-14 against them.  We’ve been playing them every year except for 2020 since 1997.  They’re not USC.  We don’t need to play them every year.  I’m not opposed to playing them occasionally, but we need to take a break from playing them.  Also, their band is despicable.  If we took a break for like a decade, I would have them much higher on the list.

Group of Five/Pac 12

1. Navy- Some Notre Dame fans don’t want to play Navy.  They’re not USC, but I’m with Father Hesburgh on this one.  We should play them every year as long as they want to play us.  I like the tradition and the history of Notre Dame and Navy in World War II.  We’re 83-13-1 against them all time.  We should just play them and beat them every single year (which we did from 1964-2006) as long as they want to play us.

2. Boise State- We’ve never played them, but they’re on the schedule for this year.  They’re the most successful Group of Five team this century.

3. Army- I respect the military academies and we have a lot of history with them.  We’re 40-8-4 against them and I was there for our most recent meeting last year.

4. Air Force- We’re 24-6 against them and we last played them in 2013.  I don’t want to play them as frequently as we play Army, but it’s time to get them back on the schedule.  For the service academies, I think my policy would be that we should play Navy every year, Army an average of once every five years, and Air Force an average of once every ten years.

5. Oregon State- We’re now into the group of teams that we have a losing record against and we should get them on the schedule to rectify that situation.  We’re 1-2 against Oregon State.  We won our last meeting with them in the Sun Bowl in 2023.  So we could be one two-game series away from having a winning record against them.

6. UConn- We lost our only meeting against them in 2009.  We have some history with them in basketball (especially women’s basketball) so that’s why I’m ranking them this high.

7. Northern Illinois- We lost our only meeting with them last year.  Of course, the loss sparked a turnaround that led to our best season since 1993, but we should get them back on the schedule for two games so that we can have a winning record against them.

8. Marshall- We lost our only meeting with them in 2022.

9. Tulsa- We lost our only meeting with them in 2010.

10. South Florida- We lost to them in 2011, but we beat them in 2020.  They’re on the schedule for 2029 and 2031 so we should end up 3-1 against them.

11. Hawaii- Unless I’m forgetting somebody, I’m done with the group of teams that we have a losing record against where we should quickly fix that issue (we’re 0-1 against Yale all time, but we’re not going to be playing them).  We’re 3-0 against Hawaii all time.  Our last meeting was in the Hawaii Bowl in 2008.  The other two meetings were both road games in 1991 and 1997.  I wonder how that happened.  So we’ve never played them at home.  I would be cool with making a scheduling agreement with them for two home games and one away game (a Week 0 game in Hawaii would be a cool way to start a season).

12. San Diego State- We won our only meeting with them in 2008.  Like Hawaii, a two for one scheduling agreement would be okay with me and it would give us a cool place to play a road game.

13. Appalachian State- We’ve never played them, but I appreciate them for beating Michigan in 2007 (when Appalachian State was still an FCS team).  So I would be cool with playing them and doing what Michigan couldn’t do.

We should play Navy plus one other Group of Five team per year (maybe two others occasionally).  Our general schedule model is six home games, five road games, and one Shamrock Series game.  That means we have one buy game at home where we’re paying a school to come play us and we’re not going to play at their stadium.  That’s where we need a Group of Five team that isn’t Navy (or it could be a two home games and one away game deal).  There’s probably a small group o Power 4 teams that could fit into that spot also (Rutgers, Kansas, Vanderbilt, maybe a few others). So my advice to Pete Bevacqua is to start settling some scores with schools that we never should have lost to.  And get some more SEC schools in the schedule since they’re going to need a good non-conference opponent.

As you can see, I’m ready for football.  It starts tomorrow with Week 0.  But we don’t play on a Saturday until September 13 because we start with a Sunday game at Miami and then we’re off Week 2.  Hopefully this season will be even better than last season.  Go Irish!

My Long Absence from Minnesota

I covered the minor league game in St. Paul and now I’ll get to the rest of my time in Minnesota.  Besides layovers in the airport, my only previous times in Minnesota were ten years ago.  I went to mark the 50th anniversary of the Dodgers beating the Twins in the World Series.  Actually, it was a coincidence, but the Twins were celebrating the 50th anniversary of winning the American League that year and they played a message from Vin Scully. By the way, that was a great World Series and I’ve watched all of the Dodgers’ wins from the series.  I was back in Minnesota a few months later for Dennis and Courtney’s wedding.  This year I was back for the 60th anniversary of the 1965 World Series. I had been wanting to get back to Target Field because it’s really good. I had it ranked ninth of all the Major League stadiums I’ve been to (and third out of current American League stadiums). Besides getting to Target Field again, I got to a minor league game at a great stadium, and I got to see Dennis and Courtney and meet their kids for the first time.

Dennis picked me up at the airport and we went to the Blue Door Pub.  It was featured on Man v. Food.  The Jucy Lucy is Minnesota’s specialty version of the cheeseburger.  It has the cheese stuffed inside the burger.  I had the Blucy, which had bleu cheese inside.  It was very good.  After lunch, I checked into my hotel and relaxed for a bit before we met up for the Saints game.

The next day the plan was to go to another Man v. Food spot, the Seventh Street Truck Park.  It’s an indoor spot with all these different food trucks.  Google said it didn’t open until 3:00.  We checked the website and it said it opened at 11:00.  It turned out that Google was right.  So instead we did another Man v. Food spot, Mickey’s Diner.  We went there ten years ago before it had been featured on Man v. Food.  It’s just a little train car that’s been made into a diner.  It’s probably really busy for breakfast, but we were there around lunchtime and it was not crowded at all.  It was Friday and I wasn’t eating meat so I had blueberry pancakes.  It had been a long time since I had gotten pancakes anywhere.  These pancakes were very good.  Then we went to Cossetta’s, which is this big Italian market.  I got a small strawberry gelato.  It was a reminder of my trip to Italy last summer, but they didn’t have the same wide variety of flavors that I saw in Italy.

That night, Dennis and I went to the Twins game.  They were taking on the Royals.  The Twins were wearing their city connect uniforms.  They were the Royals’ colors.  Nike is so stupid.  They’re destroying the identity of teams with all these silly uniforms.  It’s especially bad in basketball when I’ll see a team wearing a uniform that I’ve never seen before on a regular basis. I can put a game on TV and if I don’t immediately see who’s playing on the score bug, I won’t know who the team is based on their uniform.

As for the game, it was Joe Ryan pitching for the Twins against Seth Lugo.  Ryan is having an excellent year, but he got off to a rough start, giving up a lead off home run to Mike Yastrzemski.  But the Twins struck back quickly.  Matt Wallner hit a home run and then an RBI single and a fielder’s choice made it 3-1 Twins after one inning.  The Twins scored two more on RBI singles in the second and they were in control of the game.  Kody Clemens (son of cheater Roger) hit a home run in the fourth to make it 7-1.  And it never really was interesting as the Twins ended up winning 9-4.  Joe Ryan pitched five innings and gave up one run.  The Twins had five players with two hits and Ryan Jeffers had three.  Attendance was 28,242.  It was 88° and the game lasted two hours and 33 minutes.

This was our view for the game.  This was my third game at Target Field.  There are only ten Major League stadiums where I’ve attended more games.

It was a little bit of a challenge to find something to eat since I wasn’t eating meat.  We took a lap around the lower concourse.  The Twins’ website had a lot of information about what was available.  I knew they had walleye sliders, but it was hard to find them.  Walleye are freshwater fish native to Canada and the northern US.  I remember having walleye the last time I was in Minnesota (not at a Twins game).  We found the sliders at Hrbek’s, a bar that was kind of hidden in a corner on the lower concourse.  They came with fries.  I’m usually skeptical of fries at a sporting event, but these fries were actually really good and the sliders were good too.  I wouldn’t have gotten them if it wasn’t a Friday, but they got the job done on a day when I wasn’t eating meat.  To drink, I had an Extra Pale Ale from the Summit Brewing Company in St. Paul.  It was the best beer that I’ve had at a baseball game this summer.  I don’t know what the range of the Summit Brewing Company is, but sadly it’s not big enough to find on Long Island.  I checked their website and there were no results available for where to find Summit beer within 50 miles of me.  I would definitely get some if I could.  After the game, they had fireworks.  There is a pretty good chance that it was my last baseball game of the season so it was cool to go out with fireworks.

I hope I get to see fireworks at some baseball games next year to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.

The last day I was in Minnesota was Saturday.  We didn’t really have anything planned.  The weather was really bad early in the day so after checking out of my hotel, Dennis picked me up and we hung out at his house.  The last time I saw Dennis was 2018.  I think the last time I saw Courtney was when they got married ten years ago.  I got to meet their kids.  Winnie is almost three and a half and Beatrice just turned one a couple months ago.  Winnie can already sing the Notre Dame Victory March so Dennis and Courtney are obviously doing a good job as parents.  Dennis and I were playing around on the Alexander Bess Notre Dame Football Database.  I think I might have found mistakes on there in the past, but it’s an excellent website.  According to the database, we are undefeated all time in August games (8-0).  Hopefully we will keep that going with our game at Miami on August 31.  We also discovered that Notre Dame has not played Minnesota since 1938 (we’re 4-0-1 against them all time).  That provided the inspiration for my next blog post so stay tuned for that.

To finish my Minnesota trip, I went to the vigil Mass that night and then Dennis drove me to the airport for my late flight.  My best case scenario was getting home around 1:15.  But the trip ended the way it started.  The flight was late, there was a delay getting into the gate after we landed, I had a long wait for the Air Train, and then I had a long wait for the Long Island Railroad at Jamaica.  I got home at 3:00 in the morning.  It was a good thing I didn’t have to worry about getting to Mass in the morning.  But it was good to see Dennis and Courtney and to finally get to meet their kids.  I remember staying with Matt for the Navy game the fall after I graduated (2007) and then I didn’t see him again until the championship game in January of 2013.  The next time I saw him was for the Oklahoma game in 2013.  Those three games were all losses.  I am not superstitious (unlike Michael Scott, I’m not even a little stitious), but we were getting close to being able to never hang out for a Notre Dame football game ever again because there would be too many bad memories (but I think Notre Dame is currently on a four game winning streak when Matt and I are both in attendance).  I bring that up because a little over five years seemed like such a long time to not see one of my good friends from Notre Dame.  It had been seven years since I had seen Dennis.  Hopefully I’ll see Dennis again before the 70th anniversary of the Dodgers winning the 1965 World Series.  Maybe it will be for a Notre Dame football game.

More Manfred Madness

The two sports that I care about the most are baseball and college football.  And the people in charge of those sports just keep trying to make them worse.  Now we have the Big 10 talking about a 28 team playoff.  What are we doing?  College football had the best regular season in sports and they’re trying to make it into college basketball (which has the worst regular season in major sports).  If you’re outside of the top six teams in the regular season, you don’t deserve a shot at winning the National Championship.  Obviously it worked out pretty well for me last year with Notre Dame making it to the championship game, but I would have been totally okay with the penalty for losing to a bad Northern Illinois team being that you don’t get to play for a National Championship.  Ohio State won the National Championship.  Obviously they earned it in the playoff by beating good teams, but I like the idea of losing two games in the regular season costing you a shot at a National Championship.  They lost to Oregon and a bad Michigan team (post-cheating Michigan) last year and those games just didn’t matter.  They’re already at a 12 team playoff so I’d be okay with going to 16.  I think 12 is too many already, but what’s the difference between 12 and 16 for a college football playoff?  But anything more than 16 would be absurd.  The only good thing would be that maybe if they expanded by that many teams, Lincoln Riley wouldn’t be afraid to play Notre Dame because he’s pretty much taken the position that he wants to keep playing Notre Dame as long as losing to us doesn’t mean anything for USC.  If they could go 7-5 and get the 28 seed, then maybe he wouldn’t be so eager to get rid of the best rivalry in college football.

Now that I’ve gotten my college football rant out of the way, let’s get to Rob Manfred.  I’m convinced the guy just doesn’t like baseball.  He’s ruined exciting extra innings games.  He’s taken away the possibility of great moments like Clayton Kershaw’s Opening Day home run and shutout (unless Ohtani does it).  And now he wants to get rid of the American and National League and go East/West.  I saw this coming when he ruined National League baseball with the DH.  He talked about reducing travel and the wear and tear on players.  You know how you could do that?  Undo another recent stupid Manfred change, having every team playing every other team each season.  I don’t need the Dodgers playing the Blue Jays, Rays, Guardians, White Sox, Rangers, etc. each season.  For a while they were playing 20 interleague games per year.  Now I think they’re up to 48.  That’s way too many interleague games.  Manfred mentioned realignment in connection with expansion.  If you expand, you have to realign.  And I was in favor of that and had my own realignment plan 12 years ago.  I said, “I think the game is in much better shape now than it was [in 1998 when baseball last expanded].”  That was before Manfred was the commissioner.  So it’s not in such great shape now.  With Manfred as the commissioner, I don’t want to expand because he will mess everything up if they do.  For a long time, I’ve wanted the A’s and Rays to get their situations settled so that they could expand.  We know what’s going to happen to the A’s, but the Rays’ future is still very unclear.  I hope it doesn’t get figured out until after Manfred retires (2029 can’t get here soon enough) so that expansion will happen under the next commissioner.

The main reason I supported expansion and realignment was to reduce the number of interleague games.  With 15 teams in each league, there has to be at least one interleague game each day that there’s a full schedule.  With 16 teams in each league, interleague play could be much more limited.  The NFL does all divisional games the last week of the season.  This year the Dodgers are going to end the regular season against the Mariners.  They should be ending it against the Padres, Giants, or Diamondbacks.  My original expansion proposal called four eight divisions with four teams each.  I’m changing that to four divisions with eight teams each.  I’ve seen other geographical realignment proposals with eight divisions where the Dodgers and Giants are split up and the Cubs and Cardinals are split up.  If you’re doing that, you’re doing it wrong.  And I have no confidence in Rob Manfred to not do it wrong.  Anyway, here’s my new proposal:

NL West

Dodgers

Diamondbacks

Padres

Giants

Rockies

Cardinals

Cubs

Brewers

NL East

Mets

Phillies

Pirates

Reds

Nationals

Braves

Marlins

Southern Expansion Team (Virginia Beach, Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville, Memphis, Louisville, or New Orleans)

AL West

Mariners

A’s

Angels

Western Expansion Team (Portland, Oakland, San Jose, Fresno, Sacramento, or Salt Lake City)

Rangers

Astros

Twins

Royals

AL East

Yankees

Red Sox

Orioles

Rays

Blue Jays

Guardians

Tigers

White Sox

I’ll get to what the colors mean, but first I’ll talk about the playoff format.  I’m trying to address some of Manfred’s concerns without further ruining the sport.  Manfred talked about travel and the TV schedule with the playoffs.  I really don’t care about the TV schedule.  It’s fine.  But he actually does have a legitimate point about travel in the playoffs.  If the Braves had beaten the Padres in the first round last year, the Dodgers would have had to play the Braves, then the Mets, then the Yankees.  That’s a lot of back and forth between the coasts.  So I have two very similar possible formats for the playoffs.  Both would have the division winners getting a bye in the first round.  The second place team in each division would host a three game series.  You could either have them hosting the third place team in each division or you could make it like the NHL.  In the NHL, the top three teams in each division make the playoffs and then there are two wild cards in each conference.  So baseball could have the top two teams in each division make the playoffs and then two wild cards in each league.  So like if the two best records in the NL after the first and second place teams were both from the NL West, then the NL East wouldn’t get any wild cards (four teams from the NL West and two from the NL East would make the playoffs).  So I’m good with either having the top three teams in each division making the playoffs or having the top two teams in each division plus two wild cards in each league.  It wouldn’t make too much difference in terms of travel because the third place teams or the wild cards wouldn’t get any home games in the first round so there would be no back and forth.

So far, the playoffs are not too much different from what we have now.  The second round is where I’m making a pretty big change.  The first place team in each division would host all five games.  The playoff format right now doesn’t do enough to reward the best teams.  The sport is based on playing every day and then they have to wait five days for the playoffs to start for them while their opponent is still playing.  So it’s still a five game series, but the first place team gets all five games at home.  That would definitely reduce travel in the playoffs and it would reward the first place teams.  We would keep the 2-3-2 format for the League Championship Series and the World Series.

Besides the playoffs, we need to figure out how to make the regular season schedule work.  My ideal number of interleague games is zero, but I know they’re not getting rid of interleague play.  I’m going to bend pretty far on this one.  I think my thinking with eight divisions in my original plan was that you would only play one division from the opposite league each year.  So it would take four years for the Dodgers to play every American League team.  With four divisions, I would make it so that you play every team in one division in the opposite league for three games each year.  That’s 24 games.  But again, I’m trying to be realistic.  They’re not going to make it so that the Mets and Yankees only play every other year.  So each team would have an interleague rival that they’re guaranteed to play six times each year.  Each team would play a total of 30 interleague games (way more than I want, but it’s a lot better than 48).  So it’s 24 games against the division in the other league you’re playing plus six extra interleague games.  Like if the AL East was playing the NL West, the six extra games for the Yankees would be the Mets.  If the AL East was playing the NL East, they would play everybody in the NL East except for the Mets three times.  They would play the Mets six times, and you figure out three more interleague games (like maybe if the Yankees and Dodgers finished in first place, they play their last three interleague games against each other.  So you would play every team in the opposite league at least once every two years.  It used to be once every three years, but now you play everybody every year.  So I think I’m making a pretty generous compromise on my hatred of interleague play.  I’ll get to the interleague rivals later (some are very obvious and some are not so obvious).  When they started interleague play, it all happened during one part of the season (it was all done in June and July).  There weren’t as many interleague games back then, but I would go back to doing it all during one part of the season.  Like I would have it start with a series against your interleague rivals in May and end with the other series against your interleague rivals in July.  And the last two months of the season you’re only playing the teams in your own league.

So with 30 interleague games per year, that leaves 132 games against the teams in your own league.  You would play the teams in the opposite division six times each (48 games).  That leaves 84 games to play against your own division.  With seven other teams in your division, you could just play each one 12 times each.  I could live with that, but I think I would prefer my second option.  That’s where the colors above come into play.  You could think of each color in the division as a pod.  You’re all in the same division, but you play the teams in your pod 16 times and the teams in the other pod nine times.  That would help preserve those more traditional rivalries and reduce travel.  So every series of the season would be a three game series except you would play 12 series of four games each against the other three teams in your pod.  But I could live with just playing all seven teams in your division 12 times each.

Interleague Rivals

Dodgers/Angels

Mets/Yankees

Cubs/White Sox

Nationals/Orioles

Marlins/Rays

Brewers/Twins

Cardinals/Royals

Reds/Guardians

Giants/A’s

Padres/Mariners

Diamondbacks/Western Expansion Team

Rockies/Rangers

Phillies/Red Sox

Pirates/Blue Jays

Braves/Tigers

Southern Expansion Team/Astros

The rivalries in the blue and red could be shuffled based on where the expansion teams would be.  Like Giants/A’s made a lot of sense when the A’s were in Oakland, but Padres/A’s, Giants/Mariners, and Diamondbacks/Salt Lake City expansion team would make more sense.  But if the expansion team was in Oakland, Sacramento, San Jose, or Fresno, then they should go with the Giants.  The Tigers don’t have a natural interleague rival.  They could have the Pirates, but then the Blue Jays don’t have a natural interleague rival.  If you put an expansion team in Louisville, then they could go with the Tigers and the Braves and Astros could be rivals.  I guess you could also do Braves/Red Sox (since the Braves used to play in Boston), Phillies/Blue Jays, and Pirates/Tigers.  Or you could just keep the ones that make a lot of sense the same each year (Dodgers/Angles, Mets/Yankees, Cubs/White Sox, Nationals/Orioles, etc.) and rotate some of the rivalries that aren’t as natural each year.

So please don’t get rid of the National League (even though Manfred has already done great damage with the DH) and the American League.  My plan would preserve the NL and AL, preserve and strengthen rivalries, add extra importance to winning divisions, and address Manfred’s concern about wear and tear with travel.  Please Rob Manfred, don’t ruin the great sport of baseball any more than you already have.