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- THE WEEK, Page 18Big League Shuffle
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- Baseball's boss rearranges old rivalries and makes new enemies
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- Even if you don't follow baseball closely, you have probably
- heard Chicago Cub fans (columnist George Will is a particularly
- lachrymose example) wailing about how their beloved North Side
- team has not been in the World Series since -- horrors! -- 1945
- or actually won one since -- worse horrors! -- 1908. As if to
- take pity on the star-crossed Cubs, Baseball Commissioner Fay
- Vincent arranged for the club to play an easier schedule
- starting in 1993, a move prompted by the fact that the National
- League will grow from 12 to 14 teams next year. Sure,
- long-overdue geographic reform played a role in the four-club
- trade: the Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals would move from the
- National League's Eastern Division to the Western Division; the
- Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds, two of the best clubs in
- baseball, would go East. But Vincent's secret agenda would give
- aging Cub stars Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson a fair shot at
- playing in the World Series before they retire.
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- So are they celebrating at ivy-clad Wrigley Field in
- Chicago? Think again, for this is 1992, when the courts play a
- bigger role in baseball than they do in tennis. The Cubs are
- suing Vincent, contending that he overstepped his powers to act
- in "the best interests of baseball" by ordering the team to
- switch divisions against its wishes. The real motivation of the
- Chicago Tribune Co., which owns the Cubs, is (surprise!) money:
- WGN, the Tribune-owned superstation that shows the Cubs games,
- is worried that more night games on the West Coast will mean
- lower TV ratings. True, the Atlanta Braves, with their own
- superstation WTBS, surmounted similar ratings problems. Their
- solution (Cub fans, take note): the Braves made it to last
- year's World Series.
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