Toledo Union Journal

Revisions Loom Soon In World of Baseball
By DON PETERSEN
(From Labor's Daily)

What will the National league standings look like ten years from today? It's a pretty safe bet that the Yankees will be on top the American circuit ten years hence or just about any given point through the decade. It's something of a tradition, although not a particularly pleasing one in certain outposts of the loop, that the Dodgers had assumed like "way out west" in Chicago and Cleveland.

Yep, the Big City Slickers from Gotham may, we assume, be ranked as among the favorites for the 1967 A.L. flag.

But what will the National loop standing look like by then? Perhaps it'll be something like this:
1-Milwaukee
2-Cincinnati
3-Los Angeles
4-St. Louis
5-San Francisco
6-Chicago
7-Pittsburgh
8-Philadelphia

Or perhaps Houston, Minneapolis, Denver or Phoenix will be in the listings somewhere instead of those shown above.

Speculation is rampant concerning the future lineup of the big leagues, following huddles involving New York Giant and Brooklyn prexies with a couple of far western city dignitaries.

Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick has attempted to tie a blanket over talk of a future switch of franchises. And while, in all probability, we won't hear anything official for the duration of the current season Frick's instructions didn't dim fan interest in the situation. In fact, it acted as a stimulus, if anything.

Frick's position can be clearly understood. Rumors of franchise changes are undesirable in the early part of the campaign. They could cripple the attendance in a city rumored "on the way out."

The commissioner's concern seemingly is not shared by everyone in the baseball world, however. Because the lid is far from tight on the prospective franchise-swapping negotiations.

Brooklyn, most prominently mentioned as a future ex-member of the league, would give up the Dodgers to Los Angeles if one rumor proves correct. L.A., one of the nation's largest (in size and population) cities, is itching to get its hands on a big-time franchise.

Phil Wrigley of the Cubs has worked prominently toward getting L.A. such a franchise, even though he owned a farm club in that city, which would be killed off should major league ball come in. Then recently, Wrigley traded the L.A. Pacific Coast loop franchise to Brooklyn.

In view of Wrigley's interest in the west coast's future in the Big Time, his deal with Brooklyn led, naturally, to speculation.

But one club can't move alone west of the Rockies. Schedule difficulties couldn't tolerate it. Two clubs must make the transfer simultaneously. And when one gets to that stage in his thinking, San Francisco pops into the picture. The bay city's mayor last week was in New York to talk with baseball officials, with the New York Giants being rumored as westward bound.

Some day the West Coast will have big league baseball. It may be next year, or it may be ten years from now, but it will come.

The changes of the future seem to lie in three general divisions. The baseball moguls will soon have to make up their minds which tangent they are to follow. The trio of possible routes of the future:

Three Possibilities
1-Continuation of the two eight-team major leagues, with occasional switches in franchises, as in the case of the Boston Braves and St. Louis Browns;
2-Bulging each major league to a ten-team set-up, so as to give deserving cities of the west a franchise;
3-Establishment of a third major league, perhaps necessitating realignment of the current line-up.

It's a pretty good bet that one of the three courses will be utilized in the not-too-distant future.

While Commissioner Frick looks with disdain upon talk at this time of switching franchises, he too will discuss the future of the game. Earlier this month, speaking at Houston, Texas, Frick had this to say.

Frick Prophesy
"...The time has come when we must give serious thought to a change. The population centers have moved. For 50 years baseball has been confined to an area north of the Potomac and east of the Mississippi. Today there are great masses west of the Mississippi." Then, with a prophesy of his own, he added, "I have a hunch that I will see three major leagues in my lifetime."

What will the baseball world look like ten years hence? It's all guesswork, but changes are in the works. We'll venture out on the limb only with this: The Yankees (if there is a Yankee team) will be leading the American league (if there is an American league) in 1967. Like we said before, it's a tradition.