Today's standings: May 31, 2015

Here are the standings across the Major Leagues through May 30 in all the competitions, including the Henry Aaron, Dick Allen and Harmon Killebrew traveling trophies, the West, East and Center regional leagues, the ordinal divisions with promotion and relegation, and, of course, the Major League playoff races, among others.

Traveling Trophies

Henry Aaron Award
	W	L	P	T	G	D	A
DODGERS	15	10	8	1	22	6	7
San Francisco	14	9	7	1	13	3	4
San Diego	10	7	5	1	13	3	4
Colorado	6	8	4	0	0	0	0
Arizona	2	7	3	0	0	0	0
Chicago (NL)	1	2	1	0	0	0	0
Miami	1	2	1	0	0	0	0
Milwaukee	0	3	1	0	0	0	0
Atlanta	1	2	1	0	0	0	0

Numbers in bold indicate league leaders.

W — Wins. L — Losses. P — Times played for title. T — Titles won. G — Number of games that team held title after winning it. D — Title defenses. A — Title defense attempts.

2015 Henry Aaron Award results 
(There is no tiebreaker for the Aaron. The champion keeps it unless the challenger wins outright. However, the runs are given for series ending in ties).

San Francisco 2, Arizona 1 — April 6-8 at Arizona.
San Diego 3, San Francisco 1 — April 10-12 at San Diego.
San Diego 2, Arizona 1 — April 13-15 at San Diego.
San Diego 2, Chicago (NL) 1 — April 17-19 at Chicago.
San Diego 2, Colorado 2 — April 20-23 at Denver (San Diego, 26-16).
DODGERS 2, San Diego 1 — April 24-26 at San Diego.
DODGERS 2, San Francisco 1 — April 27-29 at Los Angeles.
DODGERS 3, Arizona 0 — May 1-3 at Los Angeles.
DODGERS 2, Milwaukee 2 — May 4-7 at Milwaukee (DODGERS, 28-16).
DODGERS 2, Colorado 0 — May 8-10 at Colorado.
DODGERS 2, Miami 1 — May 11-13 at Los Angeles.
DODGERS 2, Colorado 2 — May 14-17 (Colorado, 16-12).
San Francisco 3, DODGERS 0 — May 19-21 at San Francisco.
San Francisco 2, Colorado 2 — May 22-24 at Denver (Colorado, 31-26).
San Francisco 3, Milwaukee 0 — May 25-27 at Milwaukee.
San Francisco 2, Atlanta 1 — May 28-30 at San Francisco, ongoing.

---

Dick Allen Award
	W	L	P	T	G	D	A
St. Louis	26	10	12	2	31	8	9
Chicago	7	8	5	1	8	1	3
Pittsburgh	5	8	4	1	7	1	2
Arizona	2	4	2	1	3	0	1
Philadelphia	3	5	2	0	0	0	0
Milwaukee	2	4	2	0	0	0	0
Cincinnati	1	5	2	0	0	0	0
DODGERS	1	1	1	0	0	0	0
Washington	1	2	1	0	0	0	0
San Diego	1	2	1	0	0	0	0

Numbers in bold indicate league leaders.

W — Wins. L — Losses. P — Times played for title. T — Titles won. G — Number of games that team held title after winning it. D — Title defenses. A — Title defense attempts.

2015 Dick Allen Award results
(Total runs tiebreaker given if series ends in a tie.)

St. Louis 1, Chicago 1 — April 5-8 at Chicago (St. Louis, 3-2).
St. Louis 2, Cincinnati 1 — April 10-12 at Cincinnati.
St. Louis 2, Milwaukee 1 — April 13-16 at St. Louis.
St. Louis 3, Cincinnati 0 — April 17-19 at St. Louis.
St. Louis 2, Washington 1 — April 21-23 at Washington.
St. Louis 2, Milwaukee 1 — April 24-26 at Milwaukee.
St. Louis 3, Philadelphia 1 — April 27-30 at St. Louis.
St. Louis 3, Pittsburgh 0 — May 1-3 at St. Louis.
St. Louis 3, Chicago 1 — May 4-7 at St. Louis.
Pittsburgh 2, St. Louis 1— May 8-10 at Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh 2, Philadelphia 2 — May 11-14 at Philadelphia (Pittsburgh, 15-12).
Chicago 2, Pittsburgh 1 — May 15-17 at Chicago.
Chicago 2, San Diego 1 — May 19-21 at San Diego.
Arizona 2, Chicago 1 — May 22-24 at Phoenix.
St. Louis 3, Arizona 0 — May 25-27 at St. Louis.
DODGERS 1, St. Louis 1 — May 29-30 at St. Louis, ongoing.

---

Harmon Killebrew Award
	W	L	P	T	G	D	A
Minnesota	13	7	7	2	14	3	4
Kansas City	10	5	5	1	9	2	4
Baltimore	4	4	3	1	7	1	2
New York	4	4	2	1	4	0	1
Tampa Bay	5	5	3	1	3	0	1
Chicago	3	7	4	1	1	0	1
Toronto	1	1	1	0	0	0	0
Cleveland	1	2	1	0	0	0	0
Boston	0	2	1	0	0	0	0
ANGELS	0	3	1	0	0	0	0

Numbers in bold indicate league leaders.

W — Wins. L — Losses. P — Times played for title. T — Titles won. G — Number of games that team held title after winning it. D — Title defenses. A — Title defense attempts.

2015 Harmon Killebrew Award results
(Total runs tiebreaker given if series ends in a tie.)

Kansas City 3, Chicago 0 — April 6-9 at Kansas City.
Kansas City 3, ANGELS 0 — April 10-12 at Anaheim.
Minnesota 2, Kansas City 1 — April 13-16 at Minneapolis.
Minnesota 2, Cleveland 1 — April 17-19 at Minneapolis.
Kansas City 2, Minnesota 1 — April 20-22 at Kansas City.
Chicago 2, Kansas City 1 — April 23-26 at Chicago.
Baltimore 1, Chicago 0 — April 29 at Baltimore.
Baltimore 2, Tampa Bay 1 — May 1-3 at Tampa Bay.
New York 3, Baltimore 1 — May 7-10 at New York.
Tampa Bay 3, New York 1 — May 11-14 at Tampa Bay.
Minnesota 2, Tampa Bay 1 — May 15-17 at Minneapolis.
Minnesota 2, Chicago 1 — May 22-24 at Chicago.
Minnesota 3, Boston 0 — May 25-27 at Minneapolis.
Minnesota 1, Toronto 1 — May 29-30 at Minneapolis, ongoing.

---

Regional Leagues

West League Overall W     L      Pct.     GB Houston 22 12 .647 — DODGERS 23 13 .639 — San Francisco 20 17 .541 3½ ANGELS 18 16 .529 4 Arizona 14 13 .519 4½ San Diego 19 19 .500 5 Seattle 14 16 .467 6 Texas 11 16 .407 7½ Oakland 11 18 .379 8½ Colorado 10 22 .313 11	North Division W     L      Pct.     GB San Francisco 20 17 .541 — Arizona 14 13 .519 1 Seattle 14 16 .467 2½ Oakland 11 18 .379 5 Colorado 10 22 .286 7½ South Division W     L      Pct.     GB Houston 22 12 .647 — DODGERS 23 13 .639 — ANGELS 18 16 .529 4 San Diego 19 19 .500 5 Texas 11 16 .407 7½
Saturday's results No games scheduled.	Sunday's games No games scheduled.

---

East League Overall W     L      Pct.     GB New York (NL) 23 13 .639 — Washington 20 14 .588 2 Tampa Bay 20 16 .556 3 New York (AL) 18 16 .529 4 Atlanta 16 16 .500 5 Toronto 15 16 .484 5½ Miami 17 19 .472 6 Boston 14 17 .452 6½ Baltimore 16 20 .444 7 Philadelphia 11 23 .324 11	North Division W     L      Pct.     GB New York (NL) 23 13 .639 — New York (AL) 18 16 .529 4 Toronto 15 16 .484 5½ Boston 14 17 .452 6½ Philadelphia 11 23 .324 11 South Division W     L      Pct.     GB Washington 20 14 .588 — Tampa Bay 20 16 .559 1 Atlanta 16 16 .500 3 Miami 17 19 .472 4 Baltimore 16 19 .444 5
Saturday's results Tampa Bay 3, Baltimore 0. Miami 9, New York (NL) 5.	Sunday's games Tampa Bay at Baltimore. Miami at New York (NL)

---

Center League Overall W     L      Pct.     GB Kansas City 20 11 .645 — St. Louis 21 12 .636 — Detroit 23 14 .622 — Minnesota 18 15 .545 3 Chicago (NL) 14 14 .519 4 Chicago (AL) 16 21 .432 7 Cleveland 14 19 .424 7 Cincinnati 13 19 .406 7½ Pittsburgh 13 20 .394 8 Milwaukee 12 19 .387 8	North Division W     L      Pct.     GB Detroit 23 14 .622 — Minnesota 18 15 .545 3 Chicago (NL) 14 14 .500 4½ Chicago (AL) 16 21 .432 7 Milwaukee 12 19 .387 8 South Division W     L      Pct.     GB Kansas City 20 11 .645 — St. Louis 21 12 .636 — Cleveland 14 19 .424 7 Cincinnati 13 19 .406 7½ Pittsburgh 13 20 .394 8
Saturday's results Kansas City at Chicago (NL), ppd.	Friday's games Kansas City at Chicago (NL).

---

Ordinal Divisions

First Division W     L      Pct.     GB San Francisco 12 3 .800 — Tampa Bay 7 2 .778 2 Washington 6 3 .667 3 St. Louis 3 2 .600 4 DODGERS 5 9 .357 6½ Atlanta 6 11 .353 7 ANGELS 2 5 .286 6 Toronto 4 10 .250 7½	Second Division W     L      Pct.     GB Texas 8 5 .615 — Kansas City 14 11 .560 — Cincinnati 10 8 .556 ½ New York (AL) 7 6 .538 1 Detroit 12 11 .522 1 Pittsburgh 7 8 .467 2 Cleveland 9 12 .429 3 Milwaukee 5 11 .313 4½
Saturday's results DODGERS 5, St. Louis 1. Atlanta 8, San Francisco 0. Today's games DODGERS at St. Louis. Atlanta at San Francisco.	Saturday's results No games scheduled. Sunday's games No games scheduled.

Third Division W     L      Pct.     GB Minnesota 8 2 .800 — Seattle 8 5 .615 1½ Arizona 6 5 .545 2½ Philadelphia 6 6 .500 3 Chicago (NL) 3 3 .500 3 Boston 6 7 .462 3½ Colorado 6 8 .429 4 Oakland 3 10 .231 6½	Fourth Division W     L      Pct.     GB New York (NL) 7 4 .636 — Houston 5 3 .625 ½ Miami 6 6 .500 1½ Baltimore 5 6 .455 2 Chicago (AL) 2 3 .400 2 San Diego 0 3 .000 4
Saturday's results Colorado 5, Philadelphia 2. Sunday's games Colorado at Philadelphia.	Saturday's results Houston 3, Chicago (AL) 0. Miami 9, New York (NL) 5. Sunday's games Chicago (AL) at Houston. Miami at New York (NL)

---

Itinerant Leagues

Chub Feeney League W     L      Pct.     GB St. Louis 16 8 .667 — DODGERS 11 7 .611 2 Chicago 15 12 .556 2 New York 9 11 .450 5 Milwaukee 11 15 .423 6 Miami 5 7 .417 5 San Diego 6 9 .400 5½ Cincinnati 7 11 .389 6	Joe Cronin League W     L      Pct.     GB Minnesota 13 6 .684 — New York 6 4 .600 2½ ANGELS 7 6 .538 3 Cleveland 12 12 .500 3½ Texas 11 11 .500 3½ Houston 7 9 .438 4½ Tampa Bay 7 10 .412 5 Chicago 7 12 .368 6
Saturday's results DODGERS 5, St. Louis 1. Miami 9, New York (NL) 5. Sunday's games DODGERS at St. Louis. Miami at New York (NL).	Saturday's results No games scheduled. Sunday's games No games scheduled.

Bud Selig West W     L      Pct.     GB Minnesota 13 6 .684 1 St. Louis 18 9 .667 — DODGERS 11 7 .611 2½ Houston 11 10 .524 4 ANGELS 8 8 .500 4½ Texas 11 11 .500 4½ Milwaukee 12 17 .414 7 San Diego 8 13 .381 7	Bud Selig East W     L      Pct.     GB New York (AL) 8   5 .615 — Chicago (NL) 15 12 .556 — Cleveland 16 14 .533 ½ Tampa Bay 9 11 .450 2½ Chicago (AL) 12 15 .444 3 New York (NL) 10 13 .435 3 Miami 6 9 .400 3 Cincinnati 8 16 .333 5½
Saturday's results DODGERS 5, St. Louis 1. Houston 3, Chicago (AL) 0. Sunday's games DODGERS at St. Louis. Chicago (AL) at Houston.	Saturday's results Houston 3, Chicago (AL) 0. Miami 9, New York (NL) 5. Sunday's games Chicago (AL) at Houston. Miami at New York (NL).

---

Major Leagues

American League West Division W     L      Pct.     GB Houston 31 19 .620 — ANGELS 26 24 .520 5 Texas 25 25 .500 6 Seattle 24 25 .490 6½ Oakland 19 33 .365 13

National League West Division W     L      Pct.     GB DODGERS 29 19 .604 — San Francisco 30 21 .588 ½ Arizona 23 25 .479 6 San Diego 24 27 .471 6½ Colorado 21 26 .447 7½

East Division W     L      Pct.     GB New York 26 24 .520 — Tampa Bay 25 25 .500 1 Baltimore 23 25 .479 2 Toronto 23 28 .440 3½ Boston 22 28 .451 4

East Division W     L      Pct.     GB Washington 28 21 .571 — New York   27 23 .540 1½ Atlanta 24 25 .490 4 Miami 20 30 .400 8½ Philadelphia 19 32 .373 10

Central Division W     L      Pct.     GB Kansas City 29 18 .617 — Minnesota 29 19 .604 ½ Detroit 28 23 .549 3 Cleveland 23 26 .469 7 Chicago 22 26 .458 7½

Central Division W     L      Pct.     GB St. Louis 32 17 .653 — Chicago 25 22 .532 6 Pittsburgh 26 23 .531 6 Cincinnati 21 27 .438 10½ Milwaukee 16 34 .320 16½

Saturday's results ANGELS 8, Detroit 6. Tampa Bay 3, Baltimore 0. Texas 8, Boston 0. Minnesota 3, Toronto 2. Houston 3, Chicago 0. New York 5, Oakland 3. Cleveland 4, Seattle 3. Kansas City at Chicago (NL), ppd. Sunday's games Detroit at ANGELS. Tampa Bay at Baltimore. Boston at Texas. Toronto at Minnesota. Chicago (AL) at Houston New York at Oakland. Cleveland at Seattle. Kansas City at Chicago (NL).

Saturday's results DODGERS 5, St. Louis 1. Colorado 5, Philadelphia 2. Miami 9, New York 5. Cincinnati 8, Washington 5. Atlanta 8, San Francisco 0. Pittsburgh 5, San Diego 2. Arizona 7, Milwaukee 3. Kansas City at Chicago (NL), ppd. Sunday's games DODGERS at St. Louis. Colorado at Philadelphia. Miami at New York. Washington at Cincinnati. Atlanta at San Francisco. Pittsburgh at San Diego. Arizona at Milwaukee. Kansas City at Chicago (NL).

2012 Second Division standings and summary

As former Commissioner Bud Selig said, at least once, "Controversy is good." And was there ever controversy at the top of the Second Division in 2012. The Texas Rangers and Atlanta Braves are going up in 2013, but the Los Angeles Angels had a complaint.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Atlanta Braves and Texas Rangers each won the Second Division, in some sense, during the 2012 season. Both are going to the First Division in 2013.

The Braves (14-7, .667) had the best winning percentage, but the Rangers finished two games ahead of the Braves. By the rules, the Braves and Rangers are being promoted, but the Los Angeles Angels have a gripe. They finished 1 1/2 games behind the Rangers, but their winning percentage was .590. In a case with one team winning the division by percentage points and another winning it by games, those two teams are promoted.

However, as the Rangers won in the games behind column and thereby won the first promotion, Angels supporters point out that the Angels then should be the second team promoted, as they finished ahead of the Braves. 

So, it was tough luck for the Angels. 

On the bottom side, the Minnesota Twins and Colorado Rockies finished in a tie for last place, so those are the teams being demoted in 2013.  The Twins are being demoted for the second straight year. The Rockies, an original First Division team in 2010, were quickly demoted for finishing last that year, and their fortunes have not improved.

Four ways to make 162 games count for more

We're not exactly channeling Alexander Cartwright here, but we do like some new ways to look at baseball, if not new ways to play it. After seeing the regular season devalued more than ever by a  2014 World Series featuring a fourth-place team and a fifth-place team, we're making up ways to juice 162 games.

Alexander Joy Cartwright (1820-1892) wrote the basic rules for the great game (Public domain image).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

I shall introduce some ideas here that many baseball fans will regard as inconsiderably whacky. I think they are whacky, too, but I like them, I'm happy to consider them and I believe Major League Baseball should consider some of them, too.

Before starting, though, I should disclaim any preference for new ideas concerning the competitive structure of Major League Baseball, which is precisely what these ideas are. Those who know me a little would call me, in fact, a "traditionalist," which doesn't really capture what I like about the old ways. I like the old ways not so much because they were traditional, but because they worked so well. I only propose these ideas because the Lords of Baseball (in Dick Young's useful phrase) have beaten the old ways so bloody that they might as well finish the job.

If we could go back to two divisions in each league and short playoffs without wild-card teams, if we could get rid of interleague play and the designated hitter, I would run — not walk — to that outcome. But it's never going to happen, so we accept the world as it is. We can't say Bud Selig's innovations haven't been profitable. The major leagues did a shade more than $2 billion in annual revenues right before the 1994 players strike and, now, 20 years later, they are approaching $10 billion. Who's going to listen to me when the other side of the argument says $8 billion?

So, I've capitulated, little by little, waving the white flag here and there, trying to make my peace with the new reality — interleague play and expanded playoffs with wildcards weakening the World Series and severing the connection between 162 games and the World Championship. For me, it stinks to high heaven, though I'm sure the $8 billion smells great at 245 Park Avenue. I believe Major League Baseball (MLB) could still have the $8 billion without mucking up its competitive structure so badly, but we wouldn't expect MLB to risk a penny to prove me wrong.

Whatever the case, we're both right. And wrong. MLB is right and I (might) be wrong because MLB has added about $8 billion in annual revenues with these innovations that I have never liked. I'm right and MLB is (definitely) wrong because Americans now are massively disinterested in the World Series.

Through 1980, the World Series routinely drew shares of more than 50, meaning, literally, that more than half of the television homes in American tuned into the World Series. Those audiences declined as cable television reached every stick in the country during the 1980s, but even into the 1990s the World Series still flirted with 40 shares. Starting with the first expanded playoffs in 1995, though, World Series ratings and shares are in free fall. Today, a 15 share is good for the World Series.

The severing of 162 games from the World Championship doesn't just hurt the World Series. It makes the regular season less meaningful. It is unsatisfying to see six months of a regular season just go away — poof! — over a short-run playoff outcome.  It's not even an upset when the Kansas City Royals knock out the Angels in three games. It's just the slightly less probable outcome, which still takes the superior team out of World Series contention.

I'm willing now to let the playoffs stand alone, because I don't have any real choice. The playoffs already stand alone. But, now, what to do about the regular season?

In my irritation with wild-card playoffs, I have, in recent years, worked up a few other ways to look at the regular season. If I can make the regular season more meaningful and enjoyable, then I can let the playoffs stand alone and not be too upset that they are only tangentially related to 162 games. I wouldn't expect this to work for everyone, but it works for me.

Good taste, of course, requires a fair amount of humility and discretion, so I have kept all of this stuff to myself for the last few years. But now that a fifth-place team has won the World Series with the San Francisco Giants taking it in 2014 (beating a fourth-place team, the Kansas City Royals), I no longer can maintain my silence. And there certainly are limits to my tastefulness.

So, I shall briefly explain four new ways to follow the regular season. They name championships in my imagination only. I follow them as if the teams are fighting for them with all their might, though we all know the teams don't even know they are mentioned in these ribald fantasies.

One of these ideas is specific to my own experience with the great game across more than a half-decade of long life living in all the corners of America, or, at least, visiting them quite frequently. That one, I'll save for last.

The other three ideas could be implemented within MLB, albeit with some adjustments in the way it schedules games. They work well enough with the imbalances in the existing MLB schedules, and it should be emphasized that the imbalances don't thereby create defects that don't already exist in MLB. I have, with all these ideas, attempted to make a virtue of a necessity; that is, the necessity of living with interleague play. Without that awful reality, my whacky fantasies about competitive structure would not be possible.

The West, Central and East Leagues

I shall begin with an idea that I already introduced some years ago concerning the alignments of the major leagues. MLB has kicked around the notion of re-aligning the American and National Leagues from time to time. I shall not repeat some of the plans for league re-alignment, because they are simply ugly. With those plans, the American and National Leagues as we have known them would be so badly wrecked that it would amount to the erasure of history. We already have erased the career home run record through sheer carelessness. Lets not do that with the American and National Leagues.

My idea is to overlay a structure of regional leagues over the existing American and National Leagues and let them play out simultaneously. It's really a simple plan. Just count the count the games between the teams in the West Divisions of the AL and NL as a separate league (we might as well call it the West League) and do the same with the Central and East Divisions.

A full explanation is in the original piece about it from 2012. It actually works a little bit every third year, the years in which the interleague schedules puts West vs. West, Central vs. Central and East vs. East. This season, 2015, will be one of those seasons, as was 2012.

The Traveling Trophies

I've loved the idea of traveling trophies since I was in high school and heard tell of a local high school athletic conference that put one on the line every Friday night during football season. It was the Ear of Corn in the Cornbelt Conference, an alliance of little Western Illinois farm schools. It wasn't the conference championship, but it was something like the world heavyweight championship of the conference.

Suppose, for example, that Rockridge happened to hold the Ear of Corn (And there really was an Ear of Corn, a gold-painted stalk of corn mounted to a trophy base). If Rockridge played Sherrard on Friday night, then the Ear of Corn was on the line. Rockridge kept the ear if it won, and Sherrard took the ear if it won, then put it on the line the following Friday night against, say, Annawan.

I used to keep Ear of Corn standings in college football way back in the days when I set agate at The Minneapolis Tribune, which takes us to the late 1970s and early 1980s. But I left those standings behind when I left the job.

I have been keeping three Ears of Corn in MLB since the start of the 2011 season — one for the National League, one for the American League and another that crosses both leagues. Naturally, the AL and NL ears are on the line only in games between AL and NL teams, respectively, while the interleague ear crosses leagues. Sometimes, then the interleague ear will be united with one of the league ears.

But the principle is the same as the Ear of Corn from the old Cornbelt Conference. If, say, the Cleveland Indians hold the AL Ear and they have a series of games with the Detroit Tigers, then the AL Ear is on the line in that series. Most series these days are three games, so it's usually a best-of-three proposition. Sometimes, the ear will be on the line in a make-up game from a rainout. Sometimes, of course, it's a four-game series, in which case, the outcome will come down to tiebreakers. Those details will be forthcoming as we track the Ears.

I enjoy thinking of these prizes as the Ears of Corn, but that trophy really is specific to the mostly forgotten Cornbelt Conference, which disbanded way back in 1974, and I want to respect that. So, I have renamed these for each competition. (There is, by the way, a newer Cornbelt Conference that's active, but it is Eastern Illinois farm towns.)

Anyway, the American League Ear is renamed the Killebrew after the great Harmon Killebrew, my favorite player when I was a kid. The National League Ear now is the Allen, after Dick Allen, who I revered as Richie Allen during that one year, 1970, when I followed him and the St. Louis Cardinals. And the interleague prize now is the Aaron, after Henry Aaron, who simply is the greatest player ever.

Along with tracking how these awards change hands, I also keep standings for how each team does in games for the ears, as well as how many championships they win and how good they are at defending them. The gist of the award is that a team that can win series after series prevails during the course of the season.

Ordinal Divisions

In American sports, the worst team is rewarded with the No. 1 draft pick and other considerations to ease its way. In soccer, the worst team gets kicked out of the league.

The soccer way has some appeal. Nobody goes from worst to first.

Soccer standings are fun and demanding. It's a long slog from worst to first that way — about four years. That means an organization really has to be solid in order to climb.

Going back to 2010, the 30 major league clubs have been divided into four divisions — eight in the first division, eight in the second, eight in the third and six in the fourth. Each year, the records for each team in games within their divisions are tabulated. Then, the top two teams in each division are promoted to the next highest division for the next season, while the worst two teams in a division are relegated to the next division down.

That's the general plan, with some specific rules to break ties and account for the fact that some teams will play so few games in their divisions from time to time that they can't be fairly promoted or relegated. It's a bit of a kludge, as the old-time developers used to call it, but it works well enough.

It will all make sense as it plays out.

Leagues with Only My Own Teams

I made a mistake briefly when I was a kid. Just one. I thought, when we moved from Minnesota to downstate Illinois, that I was somehow duty bound to switch allegiances from the Minnesota Twins to a more local team. I picked the St. Louis Cardinals.

After a year, of course, I realized that I just couldn't do it, and went back to the Twins. But I also picked up the habit of following the local teams wherever I have lived, which is easier to do, anyway.

As I follow the game, I find myself always following the teams that I have picked up through life — and it's a lot of them now, because I have lived in a lot of places.

First, it was the Twins, then the Cardinals. I discovered in downstate Illinois, though, that it was much easier to follow the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox (the White Sox were especially fun, with Harry Carey and Jimmy Piersall on the radio).

After college, I took a sports writing job in Cincinnati, which involved me quite a bit with the Reds. And lots of trips to Cleveland to write about the Indians showed me a lot of that club. In those days, I also got out to New York quite a bit in a baseball writing capacity. Even before then, I liked going to New York because ... New York! And there have been times when the baseball scene in The City have made me wonder what it must have been like there in the 1950s. One year, 1985, when the New York Yankees and New York Mets both were in hot divisional races, really dipped me into it.

Then, I moved to Texas, where I followed the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros. And now, it's Los Angeles, with the Dodgers and Angels.

So, when I sit down to watch baseball games for several hours per day, those are the clubs that I track. It doesn't make me especially selective.

Some years ago, just to make it all a little more interesting, I lumped these teams into appropriate leagues and began to keep standings. Originally, I put the National League teams (the Astros, Cardinals, Cubs, Dodgers, Mets and Reds) into the Chub Feeney League, named after the late former NL President. I put the American League teams (the Angels, Indians, Rangers, Twins, White Sox and Yankees) in the Joe Cronin League, named after the late former AL President. Each of the leagues counts only the games played among those teams.

Of course, I couldn't resist factoring in interleague play with an all-inclusive league I call the Bud Selig League, which divided nicely into two divisions — the East (with the Cubs, Indians, Mets, Reds, White Sox and Yankees) and the West (with the Astros, Angels, Cardinals, Dodgers, Rangers and Twins).

In 2013, the Astros moved to the American League, which threw the Chub Feeney and Joe Cronin Leagues out of balance. Regrettably, I had to expand the leagues to bring them even.

I lived in Miami for about half of a year way back when, and I have spent several weeks of my life at spring training in the Tampa area. So, I moved the Astros to the Joe Cronin League, to which I also added the Tampa Bay Rays. I also added the Miami Marlins to the Chub Feeney League. Now, with eight teams in the Joe Cronin League and only six in the Chub Feeney League, I needed two clubs for the latter.

I do have some affinity for Milwaukee. Being Twin Citian means one is somewhat joined at the hip with Wisconsin, for well and ill. We had a cabin in Wisconsin that we often visited when I was a kid, and there was a time in the early 1980s when the Twins were so bad and the Milwaukee Brewers were so good that Brewers fans usually outnumbered Twins fans when those two clubs met at the Metrodome. Hey, my little brother also used to be a Lutheran minister in downtown Milwaukee. Close enough! So, I added the Brewers.

Needing one more team to bring Chub Feeney up to eight, I cheated and added the San Diego Padres. I don't have even a tangential connection with San Diego or the Padres, but San Diego is pretty close to LA, after all, and one does meet a lot of San Diego people living in LA. Adding the Padres also adds a western club to balance out the games among teams a bit. I enjoy watching the Padres, too, especially when Dick Enberg is on TV.

So, that's the Four Ways — the regional league overlay, the Ears of Corn, the ordinal divisions and the teams I've touched. What the hell? And why not? None of it is more ridiculous than a fifth-place team winning the World Series.

San Jose lawsuit should shake up Bay stalemate

Round and round and round they go. But no one knows where the Oakland Athletics will wind up once their lease at O.co Coliseum expires at the end of this season. The city of San Jose is attempting to force the issue with its lawsuit against Major League Baseball.

The houses that no one built: Artistic renderings of Cisco Field in Fremont or San Jose, top, and Coliseum City in Oakland, bottom (Images may be subjected to copyright. It is believed that these small, low resolution images for the purposes of news commentary constitute fair use in the absence of public domain images of these non-existent facilities).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The city of San Jose filed suit in federal court last week ostensibly challenging Major League Baseball's (MLB) long questionable exemption from anti-trust laws, though clearly intending to just force some kind of action that would end with the Oakland Athletics moving to the nation's 10th-largest city. MLB, given the power to enforce market monopolies by its anti-trust exemption, says San Jose belongs to the San Francisco Giants.

The legal merits of San Jose’s suit are up to the attorneys and judges, which we’re not, but we’ll take a quick stab at it, anyway. It begins with a question: Does San Jose have standing to sue MLB? Among its arguments, the city says the A's have an option on a tract of land for building a stadium in San Jose and that the city is injured because the A's have not exercised the option and begun building Cisco Field. MLB has advised San Jose that it would be premature to put a stadium bond before voters.

Presumably, as the option does not obligate the A's to purchase the land, it's going to be hard for San Jose to demonstrate that it has been done any direct harm. An option is just that. Suppose that A has an option, but not an obligation, to do B some favor from which B would derive other benefits. If A does not do that favor, then B can't very well say it was done direct and undue harm, because A wasn't obligated to do the favor in the first place. If the A’s had actually purchased the land, then refused to build because of MLB’s prohibition, the case would look different from here.

We’ll let the lawyers and judges sort that out, along with the other issues by which the city might establish standing. Beyond that, it doesn’t really matter if San Jose has slam-dunk arguments that would guarantee legal victory on the anti-trust exemption. The establishment of standing might be sufficient to make MLB believe that its anti-trust exemption is in peril. MLB will make some kind of a deal that satisfies San Jose before it will subject the exemption to judicial interpretation.

MLB knows it was lucky when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the exemption in 1922. Rather than rule the exemption illegal, the court said it is up to Congress to legislate away the exemption. Rather than do that, Congress has allowed baseball to keep the exemption while forever holding the threat of revocation above the game's head like a bully club to motivate certain behaviors.

Thus, the motives for the suit are easy to understand, even if the merits aren't.

San Jose wants a big league team. It wants to be a big league town. And the Athletics would like to move there. They can't, because MLB's constitution says they can't. The constitution says no team can move outside of its constitutionally defined territory without approval from three-quarters of the major league teams. The constitution defines the Athletics’ territory as Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. And the constitution is supported by baseball's exemption from anti-trust laws.

So, San Jose is taking a whack at the anti-trust exemption. But it isn't really the anti-trust exemption that San Jose is after. San Jose is after a baseball team, and it knows that if baseball will respond to absolutely nothing else, it will respond to serious threats against the anti-trust exemption.

The major leagues now operate in Kansas City, Seattle and Tampa Bay because of threats from the United States Congress, vague and otherwise, to revoke the exemption. Congressional pressure concerning the exemption is the reason MLB finally got tough about performance enhancing drugs. Congressional pressure concerning the exemption is the reason MLB backed out of a deal four years ago that would have made the Extra Innings television package available only to customers of DirecTV.

That anti-trust exemption is a powerful weapon for baseball, which means threats against the exemption are equally powerful. The exemption is why the A's can't just pack up and operate as a third team in New York. It doesn’t even allow the A’s to move into a county bordering their territory and take Sacramento, which has led the minor leagues in attendance 10 times already in the 21st century, and which also is the country’s 20th largest television market – larger than the TV markets for big league teams operating in St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, San Diego, Kansas City, Milwaukee and Cincinnati, according to the Nielsen rankings of television markets.

As of October, when the baseball season ends, the Athletics are a team without a stadium. Their lease on the O.co Coliseum expires when the season is finished. Even if the Athletics were a team with a stadium, they really don't have a functioning stadium. A sewage backup this month forced the Athletics to move out of their clubhouse and into the digs of the NFL Oakland Raiders.

It would appear that the Athletics are a franchise with nowhere to stay. They can re-up with O.co Coliseum for a year or two at a time, but everyone agrees that it's not a long-term solution.

Do they have somewhere to go?

Another key party in the matter really wants the Athletics to leave the Bay Area entirely. That would be the Giants, who would thereby occupy the third-largest single-team television market in MLB, trailing only Philadelphia and Dallas-Fort Worth, according to Nielsen.

A's owner Lew Wolff has long eyed a move to the South Bay, which has become quite a wealthy part of the world in the last couple of generations. In that course, Wolff has frequently disparaged the possibility of getting a feasible stadium done in Oakland, and city leaders in Oakland apparently aren't fond of him either. Nor can Oakland officials be wildly optimistic about their chances for building a new stadium. City officials continue to bandy about plans, including an ambitious waterfront complex that would produce a baseball stadium, a football stadium and an arena. But in these days of public austerity in California, no one has put forward a believable account of how the project, called "Coliseum City," would be funded.

And San Jose, so far as MLB is concerned, really is off the table, unless the Athletics compensate the Giants so lavishly that the move no longer would be more profitable than just staying in Oakland and cashing revenue sharing checks from the commissioner’s office.

Up to 1993, the A's and Giants shared Santa Clara County, which includes San Jose. The Giants, then owned by Robert Lurie, sought an escape from Candlestick Park. The A's, owned then by Walter Haas, ceded San Jose to the Giants to expedite that process. Pretty smart move by Haas, really. If the Giants moved to San Jose, then the A's would take an improved position in San Francisco and control the North Bay.

But it backfired. Pedro Gomez said recently on ESPN that the A’s general manager at the time, Sandy Alderson (an attorney, by the way), neglected to write a sunset provision into the agreement by which the A’s ceded San Jose to the Giants. Lurie couldn't make it work with San Jose and wound up selling to a group led by Peter McGowan. The Giants now claim to have used their territorial rights to San Jose as a key component to their marketing strategy supporting the privately funded construction of Pac Bell Park. Now, the Giants' rights to San Jose are written into MLB's constitution, which spells out their territory thusly:

San Francisco: City of San Francisco; and San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Monterey and Marin Counties in California; provided, however, that with respect to all Major League Clubs, Santa Clara County in California shall also be included.

Then again, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig has said publicly that the A's didn't mean for the Giants to have the rights to San Jose "in perpetuity." Here's another issue: the MLB constitution expired at the end of 2012. That might not actually be very important. All the parties to the expired constitution still are behaving as if it were in effect.

There's certainly enough ambiguity and confusion to go around just for the purposes of discussion. For the purposes of a lawsuit, there might enough ambiguity and confusion to unhinge baseball's anti-trust exemption with a legal ruling.

In short, the A's can't stay in Oakland without extending their lease to a sub-standard stadium, and they can't go to San Jose, according to the MLB constitution. They do have a territory of their own, within which they can move about freely, and which is spelled out in the constitution as Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.

Which brings us to another place where the A's can't relocate: Fremont. The A's announced exciting plans back in 2006 to build Cisco Field in Fremont, which is located on the southern side of Alameda County. Fremont would have been a perfect solution for the A's, enabling them to remain in their territory and still draw from San Jose, as they would have been closer than the Giants to the tech metropolis. The A's could have controlled the East Bay and the South Bay.

But the political will within Fremont opposed the Athletics. Wolff could never obtain city council approval, even though the stadium involved no public funds up front and the environmental impact studies checked out well enough. The Northern California citizen is much more skeptical about such projects than citizens in other parts of the country. They worry more about problems like light pollution and noise pollution. They don't buy into speeches about how no public funds will be used to build a stadium, because they know public funds will be required for supporting infrastructure and public safety around the stadium, and they also believe that tax revenues lost from deductions for private luxury suites will have to be made up elsewhere.

In 2009, about the time Wolff gave up on Fremont, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig commissioned a "blue ribbon panel" to study the issues involved with operating two clubs in the Bay Area. But everyone knew then that the panel was a stalling tactic, because everyone knew then that the problems had become intractable.

So, there's been a stalemate, up until San Jose filed suit against MLB. If MLB and its Oakland franchise couldn't work out a solution, perhaps the lawsuit will point towards one. If not, then the Athletics remain a club with nowhere to stay, and nowhere to go.

Either way, it stands to be an amusement in itself watching MLB scramble to maintain a legal position, its anti-trust exemption, that no one else really believes it should have.

Interleague play, wild card playoffs must go

During these last several years of interleague play and wild card playoffs, Major League Baseball has profited as never before. But they still present problems. The commissioner's office has papered over some of them. But it would be better if interleague play and wild card playoffs went away completely.

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

When interleague play began in 1997, the voices from this corner spoke in complete opposition. Baseball is trading off its soul, we said. Baseball is selling its mystique, which it can never regain.

Such remarks must have sounded crotchety. The game is its own soul and mystique, beyond harm from wise men or fools. Interleague play, home run proliferation and wild card playoffs can't kill baseball's soul. But they can't help, we said, and they might even hurt. If they don't kill the game's soul, they will somehow diminish the game by wrecking decades-old standards of performance and competition. And we were right for lamenting our loss of those unities. But we were wrong for thinking it was feasible to preserve them.

Recall the situation about 1997. Fans were not coming back after the club owners forced a players' strike that cancelled the 1994 World Series. Well, we said, of course people are ticked off. Let them be ticked off for two or three years. The game will bring them back. Let the game take care of it.

But for whatever reasons -- bats, balls, dilution of pitching, smaller new parks, steroids -- home runs already were flying in numbers that sold tickets while makinhg the game uncomfortable to watch. And Commissioner Bud Selig long wanted interleague play. Delayed by the strike, wild card playoffs began in 1995. So, all of that hit at once, all these gimmicks tearing into the game's venerated unities, which had directly brought the game's present and history together for older fans.

But even we understand, by now, that the unities were an illusion, by then. The game's business increasingly nationalized with big network television contracts, later to go with pooled Internet and cable revenues. Meanwhile, local franchises are increasingly sophisticated at monetizing their markets. As all the business could be conducted by the commissioner's office and the clubs, the National and American Leagues ceased to have competing interests beyond winning the All-Star Game or the World Series. In the interests of uniformity and efficiency, the commissioner folded the two leagues into his office in 1999. We no longer have autonomous presidents or umpires for the American or National Leagues.

Thus, the American and National Leagues were on their way out when interleague play began and they no longer exist except as branding names owned by Major League Baseball. So, there really is no interleague play because there are no separate leagues, in any real sense, to play against each other. The reductio ad absurdum came with the 2002 All-Star Game played to an 11-inning tie in Milwaukee, Bud Selig's town. The insiders, the participants, didn't even care to resolve the All-Star Game. There was no Chub Feeney walking into the clubhouse and giving a speech for the good old National League. The commissioner has since papered over the difficulty with an incentive, giving the winning league home field in the World Series.

But the World Series began to feel more detached from the regular season as so many teams succeeded in the former without first succeeding in the latter. Wild cards run wild through an October postseason tournament that is little like the regular season. Out of 34 possible pennants since the start of expanded playoffs, wild cards have won nine, leaving the six division winners to average about four each. Wild cards have won five of 17 World Series, leaving the division winners to average two each. The wild cards win their fair share because they enter the tournament as equals, although they really aren’t.

The World Series championship has taken on a fluky quality, as if it were a suitable separate entertainment, but not sufficiently determined by the rigors of the regular season. If you could just back your old, shallow club into a wild card, you're an outlier seizing a crazy opportunity without bearing the burden of winning a regular season championship. And you're winning as much as they are.

The postseason schedule, with its day of rest for every two days of games, plays to the advantage of the weakest overall team, since that team is weakest very likely because it didn't have the depth to capture a division in 162 games. The manager of the weakest team benefits most from not exposing his weaknesses. Now, he can keep his better relievers sharp and keep his worst relievers out of the game. Now, his 36-year-old right fielder doesn't need two days off every week, which takes playing time away from his protégé who is moving too slow.

Thus, the postseason schedule, alone, makes the weaker teams stronger. But we're not testing the best team over the long haul, anyway. We're only testing the moment, the right now. By so often capturing the moment, the wild cards have exposed the moment's lack of connection to the regular season, because the wild cards were absent in that moment. Not even needing to buy a ticket to enter the tournament, the wild card has taken the World Series away from the regular season.

New York Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman admitted to considering the strategic advantages of entering as a wild card with a division title on the line. Winning a regular season championship became secondary to gearing up for the playoffs. We could put it on the Yankees’ unique commitment to winning the World Series, but other teams – Florida 1997 and 2003, the Angels and San Francisco in 2002 – demonstrate it just as well. There are others. Red Sox 2004?

How can we forget the Cardinals 2011? The Cardinals played 18 playoff games in 28 days. Powerful as the players union is, the basic agreement only requires one day off for every three weeks during the regular season. The playoffs are a whole new ball game, as it might be said. And no one understood better than Tony LaRussa how to demiurge a whole new team – a much better team – for that whole new game.

Baseball has a very long regular season with a lot of ticket and marketing inventory. It’s the only chance most franchises have to make money. Baseball needs that regular season to matter a bit more, to have a little more to say about who wins the World Series. It would be good for business. Maybe baseball can accomplish that much and max out the postseason revenues with the new system of two wild cards in a one-game playoff to enter the tournament.

Now, at least, the successful wild card will have to pass some kind of initiation, bear some kind of handicap by burning a starter, jump through some kind of hoop. Win that game and you're the road team in a best-of-five against the best record in your league, and you can only use your ace once. We shouldn't expect to see a wild card win the World Series for quite a while.

Happily, wild card playoffs and interleague play can be eliminated by the application of one exciting idea that also will address Selig's absolutely correct intuitions about regionalism that have driven his various re-alignment schemes. The details will follow soon. It should suffice right now to say that wild card playoffs have produced flukes and interleague play generates too many games that are utterly meaningless. We don't need them.

As McCourt disappears, what of the Dodgers?

Frank McCourt, the villified owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, finally has agreed to sell the team. Now, Angelinos have their ball club back after avoiding Dodger Stadium in droves last season. This post first appeared on The Expo Line (www.theexpoline.com) on Nov. 2, 2011, and is re-posted here because this is where it belongs.

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

Among the various caveats to relocating in Los Angeles this summer, one of the most disturbing concerned a general lack of interest in the Dodgers, who, for decades, not only maintained one of this city's most respected and unifying institutions, but, more broadly, forged a championship eminence across the baseball world and advanced an ideal of American diversity as one of its most successful practitioners. No one with a pulse for this country's high purpose and its great game could deny any of that. Even the rivals knew it was true. This summer, though, one could feel it missing. The Dodgers, in this city's walk and imagination, were dead. Glad that's over.

The good news all along was that no one hated the Dodgers. They hated Frank McCourt, and still do. Just this morning, hours after Major League Baseball (MLB) announced that McCourt finally agreed to sell the club, one Los Angeles Times columnist said it would be decent of McCourt if he would just leave town. Chances are, he won't. He and his recently ex-wife bought a portfolio of pretty nice houses here, including the $27 million glass masterpiece in Malibu and the $19 million home right next door. They also bought $29 million worth of mansions in Brentwood, collateralized with the Dodgers, which they purchased with $421 million of almost entirely borrowed money.

Never has a club owner in any professional sport exploited the property so gluttonously as McCourt, and we include his ex-wife, Jamie, for some of the houses are in her name, she produced documents naming herself as a club co-owner and she will walk away from the marriage and the Dodgers with $130 million. It's understood that team owners commonly hide personal purchases on the company balance sheet, but leveraging $75 million in real estate against the club is quite guilding the lilly. We don't know a lot about the McCourts, nor would we want to, but we do know that when they have so thoroughly blown an opportunity such as owning the Dodgers, it speaks to a general lack of competence. Anyone with access to capital could have extracted a fortune from people needing to park their cars in Boston. And when two people like the McCourts have everything you would want and they're unhappy, there’s a chance that they are incapable of happiness, together or separately.

But Dodgers fans did not deserve to be unhappy and, heeding that, they decided to make the McCourts more unhappy. Dodger Stadium attendance fell 20 percent in 2011, costing the team $27 million, according to the Times. The fans didn't turn their backs on the Dodgers. They cured the Dodgers by bleeding them. A little primitive, perhaps, but it worked. They also had MLB Commissioner Bud Selig on their side, because he owed them one after allowing the lightly funded McCourt to buy the club in the first place. Selig exerted enormous pressure on McCourt this summer, first by appointing a trustee to run the club, then by rejecting a television contract for the Dodgers and forcing the club into bankruptcy. When Frank McCourt started lashing back at Selig and other club owners spoke openly in Selig's support, McCourt was finished.

MLB said the McCourts extracted $189 million from the Dodgers to finance their lifestyle. The lifestyle of Dodgers fans has not been likewise enriched during the last two seasons. Suddenly strapped for cash, the Dodgers spent $104 million on players in 2011, 12th among 30 big league clubs, according to USA Today. The problem isn't that a baseball club must spend $150 million to win. The problem is that the Dodgers should have no trouble spending $150 million. They've got the second largest city in America all to themselves (the Angels are a suburban club), and they don't even have to worry about an NFL team stealing the Sundays in September. They've got a great tradition and a beautiful stadium, even if it's a little run down lately.

But they don't have enough players. Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw aren't enough. By many measurements, Kemp was the National League's best offensive player in 2011, and, by every measurement, Kershaw was the league's best pitcher. It says volumes about those two players, and perhaps more about first-year manager Don Mattingly, that the Dodgers finished the season with more wins than losses, an 82-79 record, because this club had nothing, or next to it, at any other position. The next best player, Andre Ethier, wasn't even an average right fielder in 2011, which was his worst season. One could easily name a dozen major league right fielders who are better than Ethier right now. Dee Gordon is an exciting presence at shortstop, but he has a long way to go as an offensive player. First baseman James Loney batted .356 the last two months of the season, but it's hard to erase the memory of his weak stick all the way through July.

When a veteran hitter finds his stroke in September, that's not the wisdom of experience. It's the outcome of playing against rosters expanded to 40 players in September, which, except for the contenders, is a Class 4A season, spring training in the fall. The same goes for the Dodgers, generally. The Dodgers won 20 of their last 30 games, which means not that they put it together, but that the Class 4A talent they played with all season is better than the Class 4A talent to which other clubs resorted in September. It says something about the Dodgers' field management and clubhouse leadership that they fought to the finish, but it says nothing about the Dodgers having the resources to compete in 2012.

On the principle that your club should have at least a major league average starter, or its equivalent, at every position, the Dodgers would be smart to keep Kemp and Kershaw for sure. If you’re the patient sort, you can give Ethier and Loney another year to become what the talent says they are. Either way, the Dodgers have more serious problems. They desperately need to upgrade at catcher, second base, third base and left field. They could comfortably keep Gordon and pitchers Javy Guerra, Kenley Jansen and Chad Billingsley for their potential. They would be no worse off replacing the rest of it.

Perhaps, now, they can. MLB and McCourt are shopping the club. It will take a few months. When Newscorp decided to sell the club to McCourt in October 2003, it still took MLB nearly four months to approve the sale. We're not even close to that point right now. The next owner hasn't been identified, let alone approved. But if the commissioner's office, McCourt and a prospective pending owner can actually work together to some extent, it's conceivable that the Dodgers will be allowed to expand their payroll during the next few months. In large part, it will depend on how the commissioner assesses the sales outlook for the club.

Be sure of this: Selig understands, as well as any of us, that it's good for baseball if the Dodgers are good, and you know the players union is griping in the shadow because a franchise that should be driving up salaries isn't doing it. Then again, all the other club owners know that if the Dodgers are back in the game for free agents, it will raise the cost of players for everybody. So, it’s also conceivable that Dodgers fans are in for one more winter -- and summer -- of discontent, until a new owner who can make his own calls is firmly in place.

Something says, though, that the worst is over, that Chavez Ravine will buzz again in 2012. Something says that you won't have to explain yourself to your pals when you go to a Dodgers game next summer. Something says the Dodgers could be on their way to a comeback. That something is a brief announcement from the commissioner's office, dated on this day, Nov. 2, 2011: "The Los Angeles Dodgers and Major League Baseball announced that they have agreed to a court supervised process to sell the team and its attendant media rights in a manner designed to realize maximum value for the Dodgers and their owner, Frank McCourt. The Blackstone Group LP will manage the sale process."

It doesn't mean the Dodgers are back. But it means McCourt is gone. By some reckonings, that’s almost as good.