Looking Into The Crystal Baseball

Instead of your typical pre-season baseball preview, we thought we'd look into the future, where the onetime National Pastime seeks to reinvent itself in the wake of drug scandals and declining attendance and TV ratings. So they came up with some radical solutions:

• Expand the major leagues from 30 to 32 teams with the addition of Las Vegas and the Meadowlands in New Jersey.
• No more National and American leagues. They are now the Abner Doubleday Conference and the Bud Selig Conference, respectively. Divisions, which have been increased from six to eight with four teams each, are named for legendary players and significant executives. That's taking a page from the National Hockey League, which used to name its conferences and divisions after people instead of geographic directions (Prince of Wales Conference, Norris Division, and so on),

Abner Doubleday Conference (formerly National League)

Willie Mays Division New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles.

Roberto Clemente (or Ty Cobb, if you prefer) Division Atlanta Braves, Washington Nationals, Tampa Bay Rays, Florida Marlins.

Branch Rickey Division St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, Cleveland Indians, Cincinnati Reds.

Jackie Robinson Division Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, San Diego Padres, Arizona Diamondbacks.

Bud Selig Conference (formerly American League)

Babe Ruth Division New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, New Jersey.

Clark Griffith Division Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, Milwaukee Brewers, Detroit Tigers.

Connie Mack (Gene Autry) Division Los Angeles Angels, Oakland Athletics, Seattle Mariners, Las Vegas.

Nolan Ryan Division Colorado Rockies, Kansas City Royals, Texas Rangers, Houston Astros.

• With the division changes comes a new playoff format. Six teams from each conference (four division champions and two wild card teams) would face each other, with first-round byes going to two teams with the best records.
• The World Series would now be played in early November at a neutral site in a best-of-seven format, most likely in domes and warm-weather cities.

As for whether all of this has a chance in hell of actually occurring, the Crystal Baseball is hazy. Or maybe it just turned into a disco ball. Or--wait! It just exploded!

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Meanwhile, back in the real world, here's who we think will make it to October 2008:

American League East Boston Red Sox

Central Detroit Tigers

West Los Angeles Angels

Wild Card Cleveland Indians

National League East New York Mets

Central Milwaukee Brewers

West Arizona Diamondbacks

Wild Card Philadelphia Phillies

Let the arguments begin.