“The problem with the proposal is that it’s too logical, it makes so much sense, just as it works in the NHL and the NBA,” says Jane Leavy, the preeminent baseball biographer, whose forthcoming book, “Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It” manages to see precisely what Manfred cannot.
“But baseball is different. It can’t presume the way those leagues can to eliminate the perquisites of its history, and so what makes sense doesn’t always work for baseball.
“It’s like, ‘Erase the record books, erase the collective unconscious, wipe the slate clean.’ Baseball is too much trapped by its history, I understand that and I get that, but it also is indebted to its history in ways that younger sports are not.”
More from Tara Sullivan’s “If Rob Manfred’ s latest idea about MLB expansion and radical realignment becomes reality, the fans lose out the most” in The Boston Globe at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/20/sports/rob-manfred-baseball-expansion-realignment/