On the Wild Card & Brooklyn
One of the stupidest things about the wild card system is that, with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Florida Marlins playing a four game series and the Cubs having a miniscule chance of catching the Cardinals for the divisional crown, I'm supposed to cheer for the Cardinals. I can't do it, at least when this is not the last week of the season.
The solution is obvious: Expand by two teams, put them in the American League, and have four divisions in each league. The eight divisional champions advance to the playoffs.
SI.com's Jonah Freedman notes where one of those expansion teams can go: Brooklyn. That the New York metropolitan area can support a third major league franchise is next to certain. Portland could be given the second team.
Unfortunately, a third New York franchise will not happen. As Freedman notes, "The Major League Baseball constitution gives team owners the ultimate veto power if a team wants to set up shop in their market -- and we all know there's no way Big George ever would agree to that."
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Big George
If I remember correctly, changes could be made with the approval of 3/4 owners, correct? That's 23 of 30. Could it be done?
The two NY teams, SF and the Dodgers would definitely, I think, vote against the change. The two Chicago teams and the Angels would probably do so as well, although that's less certain. But would anyone else? I don't think any other teams face much of a threat of someone moving in, and would stand to gain a great deal due to revenue sharing (not to mention the expansion fees they could charge the new owners). I disagree very strongly that the other owners "might feel threatened by weighing a single market so heavily." The owners can be pretty dumb, but they're not that dumb.