In what might be the dumbest sports decision since the words "The Portland Trailblazers select Sam Bowie" were uttered in 1984, Major League Baseball took a big step today towards eliminating two franchises.

All reports are that the axe will fall on the Montreal Expos and the Minnesota Twins. The Expos are guilty of playing in a baseball-indifferent city in a weak-dollared nation. The Twins are guilty of playing in a Hefty Bag, for an owner who's willing to sell out faster than Sting in a Jaguar commercial. But none of the offenses justifies the death penalty.

In typical MLB fashion, this action takes the bold step of sweeping major problems under the Astroturf rug. On the surface, one might be deluded into thinking that this will be good for baseball. Stars on the two teams will be scattered around the league, thus making each team's roster that much better. The overall talent pool will be increased as guys like Craig Grebeck and John Wasdin can finally go fill their true niches in the lucrative pool-cleaning business. No one will ever lose a fly ball against the Metrodome's baseball-colored roof again.

But baseball has redefined the term "cockamamie scheme" with this idea. Let's look at a few of the glaring problems - some major, some minor - that we're looking at now.

There won't actually be a dispersal draft. The current plan is that Expos owner Jeff Loria will buy the inept Florida Marlins, and Florida owner John Henry (must resist joke) will take over the laughable Anaheim Angels from Disney. But get this; the owners, having failed in their current markets, will get to take a handful of their stars with them to their new teams. Sorry, Pittsburgh; no Vlad Guerrero for you! Miami needs him. And sorry, Kansas City! The good young Marlin pitchers will be on their way to Anaheim.

I'm not sure about the Twins; I imagine they'll be cryogenically frozen (there's the Disney connection again) until baseball returns to Minnesota.

Baseball's rationale for this is apparently that in a dispersal draft, guys like Guerrero and Twins ace Brad Radke will be snapped up by ungrateful teams like the Pirates, who will then trade them to rich teams (like, oh, let's hypothetically say the Yankees) for AA prospects and autographed pictures of Phil Rizzuto. Which means that baseball is actually acknowledging its greatest problem -- the discrepancy between the teams that can afford to compete and the ones that can't -- and sidestepping it entirely. All they're doing is giving the Marlins and Angels a luxury upgrade.

Why now? If baseball had done this 10 years ago, the likely teams for cutting would have been the Mariners and Indians. But now the Mariners just finished the best regular season in history, and the Indians made their customary walk-on appearance in the playoffs, and no one would think of cutting them now. If they had done it in 1987, they may have cut the Yankees (and no one would notice, since everyone in New York was a Mets fan in the 80s anyway).

Baseball is cyclical. 10 years ago the Twins were World Champions; 7 years ago, the Expos were about the best team in the game until they had the strike to make sure that all the good Expo players could reach their primes in cities where US TV ratings were measured.

And to totally suspect foul play in the timing, anyone wonder why there was no talk of contraction when Bud Selig (he's apparently the Commissioner of Baseball and apparently has been for a few years now) and his beloved Milwaukee Brewers were floundering at the bottom of the barrel in both won-loss record and revenues? But now they have a new stadium, and Bud doesn't have to see the team he once owned be on the list for contraction.

Baseball's anti-trust exemption. Samuel Gompers couldn't explain this one, so let's just say that if Exxon, Mobil and Texaco noticed that Shell was struggling, bought them out, then shut them down, some red flags might be raised somewhere. But maybe not, with Bush in office. Frankly, anytime the law and sports intersect, I get a bad headache, so let's move on.

More realignment! Did you enjoy the Yankees-Diamondbacks World Series? Well, maybe they'll have a rematch in the ALCS next year! Since eliminating one AL team and one NL team leaves odd numbers, talk is that the D-Backs are going to move to the AL West, switching the Rangers to the AL Central. Rangers owner Tom Hicks (you remember, the guy who's paying Alex Rodriguez the GNP of the Netherlands and still finished last) will like this, because then Texas fans won't have to stay up late to watch their bullpen give up 8 runs in Seattle or Oakland. They can watch them do it in Detroit or Cleveland instead.

Which leads to the silliest thing of all: The 2002 All-Star Game. The Diamondbacks are the defending National League champions, so by baseball tradition, manager Bob Brenly gets to be the NL skipper at the All-Star Game next year. Unfortunately, his players will be playing for the AL squad, under Yankees manager and now-Arizona-rival Joe Torre. I can picture it now; Torre makes Randy Johnson throw 9 innings in the game, so he misses one start, and the Yankees get home-field advantage in the ALCS. Admit it; you can see it too.

But if contraction has to be done, why the Twins and Expos, when there are so many other pairs of teams that make sense to cut? Here would be my suggestions.

Devil Rays and Diamondbacks - Last ones hired, first ones fired.
Marlins and Devil Rays - leave Florida for spring training only.
Red Sox and Cubs - for God's sake, put them out of their misery.
Indians and Braves - for chronic postseason ineptness and racism.
Orioles and Padres - without Cal and Tony, who cares?
Mets and Yankees - I know lots of you are with me on this one.
Expos and Blue Jays - maple-leaf waving, socialized-medicine-having jerks.
Mets and Angels - let the front-runners only have the Yankees and Dodgers to cheer for.
Yankees and Dodgers - or better yet, one team to suffer with.

originally published 11/06/2001.