Every year I offer my humble assistance to Major League Baseball.  A few simple suggestions to improve the game.  But does Bud Selig listen?

Nooooooooooooooo.

Just because I don't have a chance doesn't mean I'm quitting.  Like Hilary Clinton I will soldier on to the finish.  Just like that time I jumped off the train in Baltimore.  Under a hail of gunfire I fled Penn Station pursued by a howling mob, the women from "The View", and five dingoes  (I know, I know, I'm being redundant).  At great personal risk I made my way to Camden Yards.  No welcoming committee, no foam finger.  Well, someone gave me the foam finger, but that's another story.

Where was I.  Of yeah, improving baseball.

Let's start by recognizing that teams not named the Yankees and RedSox will not be winning the AL East any time soon.  Or ever.  If you can't raise the bridge, lower the river.  Allow teams to realign into divisions they might actually win.

The Europeans already do this in soccer.  They have different divisions and poor performers move down after bad years to lower leagues, with the best of the lower divisions moving up to take their place.

Can't beat the Yankees?  Just leave.  We align all of baseball into four divisions.  East, Central, West, and "AAAA".  You make the top five in your division you stay.  Finish in one of the bottom two places and your fans spend the next season marking their calendars for the next time Jason Bay is coming to town. 

Most teams will be back in the "real majors" in a season.  A few will be stuck in AAAA long enough for fans to lose interest and the teams go under.  Not necessarily a bad thing.

Here's how it would look.

EAST:  Yankees, RedSox, Mets, Phillies, Blue Jays, Braves, Nationals

CENTRAL:  Tigers, Indians, Cardinals, Astros, Cubs, Brewers, Twins

WEST:  Angels, Dodgers, Mariners, Diamondback, Rockies, Padres, A's
 
OTHER: PIrates, Royals, Marlins, Rays, Orioles, Giants, Reds, Rangers, WhiteSox

I would also change the rules on how teams acquire players.  Big money teams acquire much of their roster through free agency and fleecing poor teams out of their soon to be free agents.  Hey, baseball isn't the Marxist NFL with it's salary cap.  If the big guys want to hand out paychecks the size of third world economies, let them.  But let's level the field a bit.

As things stand the big spenders not only have their pick of the best players coming onto the free agent market, but they discourage teams from drafting the best amateur players by offering off the chart contracts.  Agents know they can threaten to hold out their prize prospects for another year, scaring away the poor teams in order for their clients to fall to one of the high rollers later in the first round.

Thirty days before the amateur draft there should be open season for teams with payrolls under $100 million.  Let them sign any non-professional player they want, and then have the draft.  The Player's Association would probably not go for it, but do they really want to stand in the way of a form of unlimited free agency for their future members? 

Luxury tax money should be distributed with a catch.  The receiving team's payroll must go up by at least the same amount.  If it's all going to defray expenses you have to question whether the team is viable in the first place.

Finally, everyone says it's a shame that African-Americans don't have an interest in baseball anymore.  I say give them one.  In fact, give a franchise to an African-American ownership group to operate as a third team in New York City.

In 1950 there was one New York City baseball team for every 2.5 million New Yorkers.  Now, the ratio is one team for every 4.1 million.  Simply put, New York has the population to support a third team.  And with two nice new stadiums going up, why not rent the new team a field until it get's going?

An African-American team in New York would be a way of saying that all of baseball's talk about Jackie Robinson is backed up by actions.  And it might even be a signal to young athletes that baseball is an option to be considered.

Well, that's all my innovative ideas. 

Except one.

I want the person who thought up the DH sent to Bosnia on a plane.  Once on the ground he will be told to run, not walk, to his vehicle.  Snipers will fire at him continually until he reaches an American military base from which he will fly out the next day.

Only to be flown back the following day and again for the rest of his natural life.