Just Another Absurd Plan To Realign

They cannot get Edgar Martinez out. He could step up to the plate blindfolded waving a chopstick and he’d still double one into the corner.

The Seattle Mariners’ designated hitter is 37 years old, runs the bases a bit like Fred Flintstone and his range in the field - whenever he can find the glove his manager keeps hiding from him - extends no farther than his own shadow on an overcast day. But he’ll be hitting .300 at age 47 - and probably at 57 - and at the moment they simply can’t get him out.

So someone at the players’ union - a pitcher, we’re guessing - came up with Plan B.

Getting him out of the league.

In a memo to all its members, the union recently floated its own trial Hindenburg for major league realignment, and the best that can be said of it is that it isn’t Bud Selig’s idea.

And about the commish’s ideas, the best that can be said is that he doesn’t have many of them.

To cut to the chase, the union is suggesting - for entertainment purposes only, it insists - the Houston Astros join the American League West, and that the M’s shift to the National League West.

After a thorough analysis, we can report that the most profound impact of this transaction would be Edgar Martinez’s premature retirement.

Oh, yes, and the M’s will cut back on their air mileage. It seems geography has thrown them a nasty curve and placed them a considerable crow’s flight from every other major league city. This remoteness, the players have occasionally argued, places them at a severe competitive disadvantage because …

Stop laughing!

Come again? They’re camped in a rival town for three or four days at a time, or at home for six or eight, and somehow an extra hour of flight time is taking an unfair toll on these finely honed athletes? OK, so maybe if the in-flight movie is “American Psycho” but, hey, they don’t make you buy the headphones.

If this was really such a hot issue, then the entire M’s roster would be demanding a trade to be closer to Ken Griffey Jr.’s family.

Nonetheless, Realignment Chic has inflicted baseball, particularly now that interleague play has so quickly de-evolved into such a deadly bore.

Pittsburgh at Detroit? Point me toward the scalpers, pard.

Interleague play was a transparently unnecessary, but not unappealing, gimmick when introduced a few years ago. Not surprisingly, the leadership of baseball managed to lose the entire point of the exercise - to rotate different teams through the major league stadium nearest you - almost immediately by matching the same divisions year after year.

Rather than right that wrong, Selig has moved on to realignment - concocting a plan that has four divisions in one league with no wildcard playoff team, and three divisions in the other with a wild card. One of the divisions has six teams; others have four.

Bud Selig is to baseball what Adm. James Stockdale was to the Perot ticket.

You want realignment? OK, we’ve got your realignment right here.

It’s radical. It’s ridiculous. It’s unworkable and unrealistic. In other words, it’s all the things every other realignment plan is, except that it will best serve the sport and the fans, not that either of them count anymore.

Buckle up, here we go:

- The Mets and the Yankees become the Sun Division (because the whole world revolves around New York, right?).

- Atlanta, Florida and Tampa Bay make up the Grits Division.

- Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston become the Cradle of Liberty Division.

- Montreal and Toronto go into the Sixty-seven Cents on the Dollar Division.

- St. Louis, the two Chicagos and Milwaukee make up the Bowling League Night Division.

- Cleveland, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh are lumped into the Reversing the Decay of Urban America Division.

- Kansas City, Minnesota and Detroit have each other, because no one else wants them.

- Arizona, Colorado, Texas and Houston go into the Faux Frontier Sensibilities Division.

- Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Diego become the Gridlock Division.

- And Seattle, San Francisco and Oakland become the - oh, let’s call it the D.B. Cooper Division, in case baseball ever expands to Portland.

Now that’s 10 divisions, yes, but let’s do the obvious thing and outright the Royals, Twins and Tigers to Triple A where they belong, and deport Toronto and Montreal, since baseball there is just filler between high-sticking penalties. That leaves eight divisions, with every champ advancing to the playoffs. Team with the best record plays the team with worst record, then 2 vs. 7 and so on. Home team decides on the DH. The BCS and RPI computers can be borrowed from college football and basketball to analyze stats and pick the All-Star teams, making them exactly as meaningful and accurate as they are now.

And Bud Selig gets early retirement. Better him than Edgar.