213 Miles From Shea

The baseball landscape has been stable since the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, DC.

Baseball also has 30 franchises, which is the same as the NBA and NHL and two behind the NFL who has 32. There is also the MLS as a fast growing league, which has 19 franchises growing to 21 in 2015.

There are three cities, two in the United States who have been on record recently wanting an MLB team: Montreal, Portland and San Jose/Fremont.

Out of the three only San Jose/Fremont has a real chance of happening since the move for the Athletics would be 50 miles at most and they wouldn’t be abandoning their market too much. This would be equivalent to the Baltimore Bullets moving to DC, if there was another NBA team just outside of Baltimore (representing the Giants in this analogy).

Anyway, there was an article recently on MLB.com that suggests Portland is ready for an MLB team to the point that they have plans for a 35,000 seat stadium and a market ready for entertainment. Montreal has been vocal over the last few seasons about wanting another franchise and there has been some slight criticism about the MLB being too American now.

So the question then becomes, where do these two teams come from? Does the MLB expand? Only if its economically viable. On a baseball side, expanding to 32 teams would cause a further dilution in talent, and would interfere with the 5 member divisions that have finally been equalized (AL West having 4 previously and NL Central with 6). For those reasons, but really more of the economic reasons, I would lean towards the MLB not expanding.

On the other side, expanding into Montreal and Portland would not interfere with current MLB markets.

As for internal moves, who moves? The Marlins would be a natural choice with limited attendance, but they just built a new ballpark, so that’s not going to happen, plus moving to Montreal would not necessarily increase attendance.

This would make Portland the most likely city for a team to move to (ignoring the Fremont/San Jose/Oakland situation), but who moves to Portland?

A thought crossed my mind early in 2013, “Hey! The All-Star Game is coming to New York and I’m a teacher, maybe I should volunteer to work the event!” After I realized that would most likely mean watching other people have fun at All-Star Fan Fest, I changed my mind and just went as a fan instead.

There are a lot of reasons why I did that, but mostly because of how I value volunteer work. Volunteering is something I take seriously. I was in Alpha Phi Omega, a Co-ed Service Fraternity throughout college and encourage my students to find ways to give back and support our community. I felt weird volunteering for the MLB because first it would be self-serving my interests in baseball but more because it would be donating my time to “the man”. What would I really accomplish volunteering for the All-Star Game? I’m not really helping a major issue and I’m saving a giant entity, the MLB money under the guise of putting a good face on for my city.

(It is a good time to point out that I’m not upset with people who do volunteer, just upset at the system that it has become).

In the end, if a major sports league wants to show a nice gesture to its host city, why not pay the members of the city who come out to work for it? That’s what is happening with the All-Star Volunteer now with a class action lawsuit.

Tomorrow is the Super Bowl and if you’ve been around the NY / NJ area, you’ve probably seen the Superbowl volunteers in their bright, yellow VISA jackets. These are good people (I’m friends with at least one) and I’m glad they got some nice swag (jacket, shirts, hats and gloves) but they are also putting in a lot of work and gave up the rights to pay to do this. The difference with the Super Bowl volunteers and the All-Star volunteers is depending where you are placed, you might not get to experience anything related to the event. For example, I live in Brick City (Newark), home of historic Penn Station (it is always so awkward when tourists get on the PATH train at the World Train Center, thinking it is going to Penn Station Newark, which I’ve seen happen twice in the last 3 years, and I only ride the path 4-6 times a month). I saw 6 Super Bowl volunteers in the station today.

Why?

What use are they there? Especially with the HEAVY amount of Port Authority officers there that could have easily done their jobs.

I also saw a volunteer reading on a Kindle at his post (I’m not revealing in what state/train station/street to protect this person). I don’t blame him! It was utterly boring! No one was concerned with the Superbowl where this person was and if someone has the same post tomorrow night, they won’t even be able to see the game!

It feels weird complaining about people volunteering in the sense that I’m complaining that they don’t receive a lot of benefit. It almost contradicts the definition of volunteering. When you consider though that the NFL is a tax-exempt organization due to a provision in the 501 c6 rules that include football leagues, it feels like a slap in the face.

Personally, I feel volunteering for the Superbowl host community is like volunteering at a Walmart on Black Friday (which I hope doesn’t exist). Both situations you have to be truly altruistic, you are trying to make people have a more positive experience, and you are, maybe without noticing it, helping one of the richest organizations/corporations keep more profit.

I truly hope the Superbowl volunteers have had a good experience being part of the event and I also hope that next year, in Arizona, the NFL starts to pay their workers because when you volunteer for the NFL, you are an unpaid worker.

Terry Collins hinted at a Mets position battle in Center Field yesterday on Mets Hot Stove between Chris Young and Juan Lagares. I’m hoping that this is Terry being more political than anything else because statistically speaking Juan Lagares should be in center. Chris Young is an above average fielder but Lagares has proven to be ridiculous. Last year one could, I did, make the case for Juan Lagares to win a golden glove.

Juan Lagares should be in the outfield.

Curtis Granderson should be in the outfield.

Most of the time, Chris Young should be in the outfield.

And, there are three outfield positions! The question where does this leave Eric Young Jr. and Lucas Duda. Both could platoon with Chris Young and there could be heavy rotation in the outfield, maybe Lagares gets mixed into that rotation more often than a normal player does (one day off every week rather than two?)

My rationale comes down to defense and need. Lagares, Granderson and Chris Young are the three best defenders in the Mets outfield. Lagares has the potential to do something special in the outfield after his season last year.

David Wright needs protection in the line up. Granderson then has to play every day. Besides, why do you get Granderson if you don’t play him everyday? Luckily no one is suggesting he won’t play every day so this is a mute point.

This leads to three players for the last outfield spot: Duda, Chris Young and Eric Young Jr. It should come down to Spring Training to shake this down.

This is the seventh anniversary of the start of this blog.

Thanks for reading all of these years! Looking forward to year 8!