Baseball purists are already frustrated with Rob Manfred for all of the changes he has made to the game of baseball since being named commissioner in 2015. The balanced schedule multiplied the mistake of interleague play and the designated hitter being adopted by the National League were bad enough, but the extra inning ‘ghost runner’ has truly cheapened the-now bygone extra inning strategies.
To be truthful, the commissioner’s rules to speed the game up have gone well and have become an afterthought for the most part; how many of us are paying attention to the pitch clock or catcher’s trips to the pitching mound? So Manfred gets a few points there, but his most recent floating of a proposal will tear the heart and soul out of our National Pastime.
Geographical realignment is something those other sports do because they do not have the history or the aura of baseball. Those who still call the American League the “junior circuit” understand; there always were and should always be differences between the two leagues. It would be interesting to hear what the late legend John McGraw would have exclaimed about this, he the-then New York Giants manager who refused to participate in the second-ever World Series (1904) against the Boston Americans (now Red Sox). He famously called the AL an illegitimate “inferior” rival and that his team was the only “real” champions.
Manfred has made public statements regarding this and it appears to be preceded by the expansion of two teams to have the ability of four eight-team divisions in both a new east and west type of setup as opposed to different leagues. There are a list of cities vying for these new teams and many in the media have said that Nashville and Salt Lake City are the early favorites, but groups in Portland, Charlotte, Orlando and Austin feel differently.
During an August 2025 broadcast of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, Manfred was a guest in the broadcast booth and addressed this head-on. He delved into the hypothetical “if we expand, it provides us with an opportunity to geographically realign,” and that it would be easier on the players in terms of travel. Manfred also said that he wants this to be in motion before he retires in January of 2029.
Five months later, Manfred appeared on WFAN radio in New York and told host Craig Carton and put even further emphasis on canning the NL and AL after a century and a quarter. He harped on this being helpful from a “format perspective” and that geographical realignment would “alleviate a ton of travel burden” on the players, who play 162 games in a 186 day period.
We have included one potential realignment that FOX Sports published and there is no good way to do this; rivalries that have been going on for over 100 years will be watered down. This example keeps the NL and AL in name only, with teams such as the Pirates and White Sox being in the opposite league they were mainstays in as two of the earliest clubs in history.
Although the days of the different AL and NL strike zones (because the umpires were assigned to one or the other), the actual baseballs themselves and the DH since 1973 are tiny in the rearview mirror, there is still something that makes these leagues still feel unique to each other. And because Manfred’s plan includes a number of intangibles, let’s hope he runs out of time before riding off into the sunset in three years and his successor chooses to stand pat… at least for a while.