Chicago Tribune columnist Paul Sullivan answered a frustrated fan about shipping the Astros off to the AL West:
Fan:
Am I the only one who sees how much harder it is to win the NL Central with six teams in it? All other divisions have five teams except the AL West which only has four teams. A simple fix would be to put the Astros in the AL west. This would even out all the divisions and create a terrific natural rivalry between the Rangers and Astros.
Yeah, the presence of the Astros and Pirates are really killing the Cubs.
Sullivan, excellently:
Actually, this was brought up by fans at least twice at the Cubs Convention, to Crane Kenney and Jim Hendry. Both said it was an inequity that should be addressed by MLB. But if you had 15 teams in each league, there would have to be an interleague game every day, which is another scheduling issue that would lead to some team feeling they were getting the short end of the stick. I don't see any changes forthcoming.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
