Why didn't I post this earlier?

It's always bothered my that the National League has one more team than the American League. It's also bothered my that the National League Central Division has six teams while the American League Western Division only has four teams. I know there has been talk about realigning the leagues but the arguments against it were always that this would lead to an uneven number of teams so there would always be one team in each league that couldn't play on a given day. Also, there is the inertia of the owners and fans not wanting to change things.

There have been articles written for years about moving the Milwaukee Brewers back to the American League (they started in that league), just swapping the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Kansas City Royals (but what would that solve?), moving the Florida Marlins to the American League (so they could have a rivalry with the Tampa Bay Rays) and moving the Houston Astros to the American League (where they could have a rivalry with the Texas Rangers). Actually, I hadn't heard about the Astros move - it was something I thought about myself. As a matter of fact, I've had a draft of an article sitting in my Drafts folder for quite a while but never finished it. My answer to the problem of uneven numbers of teams in each league is easily handled by those two extra teams playing each other. The extra teams in each league would rotate. Baseball has had interleague play for years now so the "extra" teams would fit in with that nicely.

Well, now, the word is that the Houston Astros are going to be moving to the American League and into the same division as the Texas Rangers. That would mean that all six divisions of Major League Baseball would have five teams. Just as I thought they should! Why oh why didn't I finish my post and publish it even just a few days ago? I could have been famous! People from all around the country would have pointed to me and said, "See, this guy had the idea before anyone!" But I blew it. Once again, I've missed my chance at fame and fortune.

Thank goodness.

[Update - I looked back in my records and found that I first started working on a post about moving the Astros to the American League in May of this year! I can't believe I waited so long.]