The other day, I saw an interesting thought experiment: what
would MLB look like today if no teams had ever moved? I put a lot of thought
into the question, and wound up with this interesting Alternate Universe take
on baseball, and I wanted to share it.
To start with, if no teams had ever moved going all the way
back to the turn of the century when the AL became the second major league back
in 1901, we'd have the following cities covered:
AL: Philadelphia, Washington, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago,
Boston, Baltimore, Milwaukee (last two are interesting because they moved to
New York* and St. Louis almost immediately; I'll touch on this in a bit)
NL: St. Louis, Cincinnati, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia,
New York, Brooklyn, Pittsburgh
*Note: technically, it’s
disputed whether the New York team that arose in 1903 is linked to the
Baltimore team. For my purposes, I’m going to count them the same, since the
New York team essentially opened right when the Baltimore team folded, taking
its place.
