Rozner: Stone pitches for expansion in baseball
• Second in a series
A billion here, a billion there and soon you're talking about real money.
No joke, Everett Dirksen, but like every other business, baseball will be searching for revenue once the world reopens and there's an easy way for MLB to bring in some cash.
As in, a couple billion in cash.
"Expansion is going to happen," says White Sox broadcaster Steve Stone. "It's just a question of when."
At anywhere from a billion dollars to perhaps even two billion per team in expansion fees, it would certainly help defray the cost of a work stoppage. Split the difference and two teams arriving with $1.5 billion per new franchise would give $100 million to each of the existing clubs.
Money is part of the equation - a big part - but there's also solving the current math problem.
"About six months ago, I sent a proposal to the commissioner through one of his advisers," Stone said. "It's my vision of what I think expansion could look like."
Right now, there's three divisions of five teams in each league, which means there's an interleague game every day.
"You add a team in Montreal and a team in Las Vegas and now you've got two leagues of 16 teams," Stone said. "That solves your interleague problem. No one likes the idea of an interleague game every day."
Stone suggests four divisions in each league with four teams in each division, and a massive realignment that makes for better rivalries.
"Four division champs and two wild cards in each league," Stone said. "They want to expand the playoffs anyway so here's a way to get more teams involved. Plus, it's easier to win a four-team division than a five-team division."
One could envision the Cubs in a division with St. Louis, Milwaukee and maybe Cincinnati, while the White Sox would hang onto Detroit, Minnesota and either Kansas City or Cleveland.
You're certainly welcome to create your own divisions. Every owner in the game will be trying to do the same.
"I see Montreal in the American League and Vegas in the National League," Stone said. "The reason I want Montreal in the American League is to give them the rivalry with Toronto. It will be like the Yankees and Red Sox.
"You could put Vegas in a division with the Dodgers, Padres and Diamondbacks and you would have outstanding rivalries and very easy travel.
"You could make it a bus league if you had to."
Of course, the Giants and Angels might have a problem with some of that, though there are other ways to create local hostilities, like with Oakland and San Francisco.
Regardless of how the teams are split up and what the playoff format becomes, MLB is destined to add a pair of teams.
"I don't know how that'll look. There will be a lot of lobbying from teams," Stone said. "I do believe the clubs that have been a part of one league for a very long time, like the White Sox in the A.L. and the Cubs in the N.L., will want to stay in those leagues, and they should as basically original members.
"But this will save on travel and get rid of the daily interleague problem."
And then there's the financial side.
"At this point, it's a cogent idea because baseball is gonna really enjoy the expansion fees with the game shut down and so much revenue lost," Stone said. "But in general these things will help baseball in the long run.
"For the players, it creates more jobs. With 26-man rosters, or even 27, you're talking about a minimum of 52 more jobs in the big leagues, so that's going to make the players happy.
"There doesn't appear to be much of a downside while there's a lot of upside."
In the middle of a depression it may sound crazy to be spending a billion or two, but it's not exactly your average person on the street coughing up the money.
"There will be no shortage of buyers," Stone said with absolute certainty. "I believe that would be the least of MLB's problems."
Two more teams with four divisions of four teams in each league, expanded playoffs and new rivalries.
Interesting idea. Then again, Steve Stone has a million of them.
• Next: Steve Stone remembers Ed Farmer.