MLB: did it handle merger worse than NFL? (expansion, stance, game)

[edsg25]

GIVING YOU A HEADS UP: the following is a long (very long & very long winded) comparison of how today's MLB and NFL came into their current formats....and a comparison of who did it best. So unless you have much interest in the topic, you'd be best to not even bother reading this..

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Both major league baseball and professional football had similar mergers in the form of two leagues combined to one. Thus you have....

National League + American League = Major League Baseball

National Football League (original) + American Football League = National Football League (combined)

But the circumstances of the mergers were far different. The NFL had been in existence since the early 1920s and was the only lasting professional football league by the end of the 1950s. The post WWII years was an era of expansion in the US...with growth to the south and the west. It was for sports, too, as cities like LA, SF, and Houston got existing or new major league franchises.

The NFL parallels the major leagues in expansion and relocation. Due to the post-war growth and the push for professional sports in cities outside the nation's northeast quadrant and with the NFL and NL/AL refusing to expand, two rival leagues were formed to incorporate the teamless cities (and in baseball's case, to give New York a second team after the departure of the Giants and Dodgers):

Baseball: Continental League

Football: American Football League

The majors solved their problem by taking in 4 teams: one was that second team for New York, the Mets. One was done in fairness of giving New York an NL franchise, Los Angeles was awarded with an AL franchise. One existing city, Washington, swapped its old Senators for a new Senators. And Minnesota, a prospective CL member, got the original Senators, now Twins.

The NL and AL were both old, both prestigious and both equals (although it would appear the "senior circuit" Nationals had an edge over the "junior circuit" Americans....but hardly a big one. This literally was a flat playing field. The equality and long standing of each would be a factor in how they merged.

Contrasting this, pro football had a totally establishment NFL, deeply rooted and, quite frankly, with by far the best real estate. There NFL was the gold standard. The CL was still born, but the AFL definitely and successfully came into existence. And it wanted, pretty much from the get go, to join the NFL.

While the NFL resisted, the AFL gained stature. In 1966 a merger was signed (although the two leagues would continue playing separately for 3 years with only one game between the two: the Super Bowl, which obviously kept its name even after the merged was completed.

The NFL-AFL "merger" really was about the NFL absorbing the AFL (exactly like what the NFL had done around 1950 when it took in a few teams...49ers, Browns, Colts....of the old AAFC, the non-selected franchises disbanding.

And the NFL merger offered something the MLB did not: a total reorganization of the leagues with the switching of three franchises....Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Baltimore from the old league to the new AFC, thus evening the numbers of each league to 13 each.

The merger meant all teams were playing under the original NFL rules....for the NFL, this was just an expansion, not a merger.

Flash forward to the 1990s. Professional sports operated mainly with five organizations, NL/AL, NFL, NBA, NHL. By the nineties, the NFC and AFC had lost most of any identity each had. They were simply all NFL and having their conferences called "National" and "American" was basically the same as the NBA and NHL calling theirs "Eastern" and "Western".

Baseball alone, operated with two separate, legal organizations during an era that fan association with their team's league lost a lot of importance. In essence, they were looked at as being "the major league" with "NL" and "AL" already having lost much of their meaning.

In 2000, the majors joined the other three professional sports organization by merging the NL and AL. Thus in our century, pro sports revolves around the four: MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL.

Baseball, of course, was different, as it always is. In baseball, this was pure merger, the bringing together of equals, The NL was disbanded. The AL was disbanded and the new organization was the mixture of both. Tradition counts far more in baseball than in any other sport (unless we look at an expanded version and include college football).

The merger was virtually invisible, there was no "NBC"or "ABC" in baseball, only in network tv. And even if those names hadn't already been taken, baseball wanted no part of them. So "invisibly" the NL and AL went from being leagues to being "leagues in name only".

Invisible meant the NL and AL would continue to play by the division into DH (AL) and no DH (NL). And of course, there would have been no way in hell of any franchise shifts.

The only visible thing the majors did was introduce "interleague" play....which wasn't interleague at all. It was all "sameleagueplay" (wink, wink)

Invisibility was there even in name....the unofficial "Major Leagues" became the official "Major League Baseball". A description became a legal entity. And MLB might have been the only name to use because the new league would not have either of the words "National" and "American" in it.

And again, so obviously.....NOTHING WAS ANNOUNCED. No, it wasn't a secret, of course, but no publicity, no suggestion that the structure had changed was given...and all the jujitsu of the manuring to make the combined league was done to give the smoke and mirrors impression that nothing had changed.

I'm sure that MLB had no intension of keeping the "secrecy" going forever, realizing that probably in not too long of a time, people would embrace the idea they actually had one league. Thus in the ensuing years, we have had baseball reorganization to a minor degree: Brewers going AL to NL, Astros going NL to AL, and two franchises....Arizona and Tampa Bay...never having an NL or AL franchise but both being given an MLB one.

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Well, I warned you: this was long and windy. So here's my question: HOW DOES THE WAY(S) THAT MLB AND NFL EACH COMBINED COMPARE WITH EACH OTHER? Consider....

• though not a merger since the NFL never ceased to be, was the NFL's division into NFC and AFC a better organization than what MLB did?

• Was it a good idea for MLB to make what I described (and definitely feel was) an invisible merger, given the traditions of baseball in America?

• Does the NFL's use of the same rules throughout the league improve on MLB's differing DH rule?

• While neither the NFC or AFC have been banned, the NFL shows comfort with switching teams around in a way that MLB does not. Is this flexibility good? Is MLB's wedded to tradition a good or bad thing?

[bachslunch]

The 1961-62 MLB expansion indeed included the Mets, Angels, and a new Senators team. But the fourth franchise was the Houston Colt .45s, who changed their name to the Astros a few years later.

The Twins (much like today’s Texas Rangers or Washington Nationals) came about because of a franchise move, not as an expansion team.