It’s a Job for Peter the Great

The time has come for Peter Ueberroth, a man of action, to act.

The time has come for the commissioner of baseball to be a revolutionary, to throw his followers a curve, to make the sort of change that will make the major leagues--indeed, the world--a better place in which to live.

This has nothing to do with the designated hitter.

Or with dope.

Or with asking Rafer Johnson to carry the torch into the first game of the World Series.

No, this is far more urgent a matter.

Ueberroth must call a meeting of the owners of American League franchises and ask them to consider realignment.

A couple of clubs from the league’s East Division must volunteer to be moved to the West, where any team with a .500 record remains a genuine threat to make the playoffs.

Year after year, we are reminded that throughout history, everything that goes around, comes around. Given time, we are told, the power will shift to the American League West, and we will wonder why we ever considered the East the better division.

Yeah, sure. And the Detroit Red Wings will win the Stanley Cup any day now.

We are tired of waiting.

Divisions were created in 1969. How many of the seven American League West franchises have appeared in a World Series since then?

Two. Kansas City and Oakland.

How many of the seven West franchises have ever, in their present locations, appeared in a World Series?

Four. Kansas City, Oakland, Minnesota and Chicago.

How many World Series have these seven franchises won?

Not many, that’s how many.

Since 1930, the only World Series won by these seven wonderful ballclubs were the three by the Oakland A’s from 1972-74 and the one a year ago by the Kansas City Royals.

On three of those four occasions, it took the winning team the full seven games to do it.

The White Sox haven’t won a World Series since 1917. They threw the one in 1919 to crooks, and have appeared in one World Series in the last 67 years--in 1959, against the Dodgers.

The Minnesota Twins, as presently constituted, have been in one World Series--in 1965, against the Dodgers. Before that, the franchise hadn’t been to the Series since 1933, when the Washington Senators were buried by Bill Terry’s New York Giants.

The last time the Senator-Twin franchise won a World Series was 1924.

The Texas Rangers, lucky stiffs, also used to be the Washington Senators. After the original D.C. team moved to Minneapolis, a second one was born, but Bob Short derailed it to suburban Dallas. Since 1972, the Rangers have been busy piling up zero division titles.

The Angels, although they came close in 1982, have never been to a World Series. The Seattle Mariners have never been anyplace.

As for the A’s, they have changed towns twice since winning the 1930 World Series, on Philadelphia’s behalf, against the St. Louis Cardinals. Once Lefty Grove left the game, not many good things happened to the A’s. The “dynasty” of more than four decades later came along, but Oakland has not been in a Series since ’74.

Swell little division we have here.

While the seven bullies of the American League East spend an entire season ripping into one another, the seven wimps of the AL West go frolicking into the night. It’s like the Wild Bunch vs. the Brady Bunch.

Actually, what it is really like is the Mr. Universe pageant. Arnold Schwarzenegger used to compete in a division against guys his own size--if you can imagine that--like Lou Ferrigno, the Incredible Hulk. Then, when he won in that division, Arnold would have to return to compete against the winner of a lightweight division to determine Mr. Universe.

The teams of the American League East are clearly bigger and better than their counterparts, but an infrequent fluke, like Kansas City’s comeback against Toronto a year ago, convinces some people that change is unnecessary.

Bull.

Even if the Angels or Rangers respectably represent the division in a playoff this October, wouldn’t it be more fair if they had beaten better competition to get that far?

The rub, of course, is this:

How is Ueberroth to know which team or teams would be safe to move? Just about the time a bad franchise and a good franchise swapped places, it would be just our luck to see the wrong one get hot and the other go cold.

Worse, there are geographical problems. Switching the Mariners and Orioles makes sense in terms of balance of power, but putting Seattle in the East and Baltimore in the West is bound to create problems of some sort.

Then again, if Atlanta can be in the National League West, what’s the difference?

We could rename the four divisions Smythe, Campbell, Patrick and Wales, like hockey did. Or East, Mideast, Midwest and West, like NCAA basketball. Or Kuhn, Frick, Chandler and Landis, taking a cue from hockey. Or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. What’s in a name?

How about if we try Baltimore and Toronto in the West for a while and Minnesota and Chicago in the East? Yeah. That’s the ticket.

The Twins probably won’t get any better until the 21st Century, when artificial grass is outlawed. And the White Sox will need years to recover from their current management, which undoubtedly will trade Harold Baines and a cow for a sack of magic beans any day now.

Come on, Commissioner, step in here, you big handsome lug. You winner of the Mr. Ueberroth pageant, you.

Break up the American League East.

The league you save may be your own.