Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

The big conversation topic in the baseball world this week was spawned by comments made by Commissioner Rob Manfred in an interview during the fourth inning of the 2025 MLB Little League Classic this past Sunday. In that segment he discussed his support for expansion and a geographic realignment which has not happened since the strike-shortened 1994 season . The last time MLB introduced new teams was in 1998 when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now Tampa Bay Rays) joined the National and American Leagues, respectively. The next expansion clubs, however, might not even be part of either "league" in the current sense if the realignment reorganizes each circuit into geographical conferences. The first thing to sort is which cities get teams and I am glad Portland has finally emerged as a frontrunner for one on the West Coast. Their presence brings us closer to my favorite period in baseball history: the heyday of the Pacific Coast League (PCL), which effective...