Baseball’s Future May Be Its Past Owners Contend Realignment Would Create Rivalries Like Good Old Days

John Harrington, CEO of the Boston Red Sox and chairman of baseball’s realignment committee, said Friday that a plan to radically revamp the major leagues is an attempt to return the sport to its past.

“We’re trying to generate very active rivalries,” he told reporters at Fenway Park. “The goal is to return to the old days of the eight-team leagues, where our fans knew the rosters of the other teams.”

Harrington said the benefit of the new alignment, in which teams would be distributed by time zone, is to decrease travel for players and allow more fans to view broadcasts of road games at convenient hours.

Also included, although not necessarily related to the realignment, is a return to an imbalanced schedule in which, for example, the Red Sox would play 16 games against divisional opponents, eight against A.L. Central teams and the remainder in interleague play.

“The major conflict here is one of change vs. traditionalist. I used to be a traditionalist, but I can’t claim that anymore,” Harrington said. “For the traditionalist, this will be hard to stomach. But we really believe that baseball is ready to step into the next century.

“It’s a heavy burden, trying to measure whether we should. But it’s not irrevocable. If we implement this and it doesn’t fly, it’s possible to adjust this.”

Joking that the new divisions would even make it possible for teams to travel by train, Harrington laid out a plan in which all 14 of the teams from the Eastern time zone would be in what would likely be the A.L., and the other 16 in the N.L.