SOME WILD BASEBALL IDEAS

It's going to come off as whining in the wake of the Blue Jays' disappointing (and entirely predictable) second half of the season, but so be it.

The sentiment here, and it's one that you've probably read about elsewhere, is that baseball's scheduling and playoff format really has to change. What's unfolded this year may not bear it out, but that's not the point. It's pretty clear that baseball is going about it the wrong way by having the unbalanced schedule and interleague play, then pretending it's a fair fight for the wild card.

Also, the wild-card winner's reward is all out of proportion to their actual achievement. The unbalanced schedule skews everything, but you don't have to be Ricky Bobby to know that finishing second, no matter what, is not the same as winning your division.

So what should be done, short of baseball, once and for all, creating real revenue sharing, instead of the lame luxury tax that lets David Glass-types of the world line their pockets while their teams go to rot?

If MLB wants to go on with the current economics and the unbalanced scheduling, then add a second wild-card berth in each league. Add a play-in game on the Monday after the regular seasons ends, or play a best-of-3 series and then start the Division Series on Thursday. The point is that it would make the playoff race more equitable and make it harder for a second-place team to reach the World Series, which is as it should be.

Or... admittedly, this hasn't been hashed out, but the other idea that's been bouncing around Mr. Sager's noggin is to go to four divisions in each league whenever baseball gets around to expanding to 32 teams. Put in the split-season format, then have the winners of each half play off for the division title.

The new division alignments might look something like this:

AL East: Baltimore, Boston, N.Y. Yankees, Toronto
AL North: Detroit, Minnesota, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland
AL South: Kansas City, Texas, Tampa Bay, San Antonio expansion team
AL West: L.A. Angels, Oakland, Seattle, Portland or Las Vegas expansion team

NL East: N.Y. Mets, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington
NL North: Chicago Cubs, Colorado, Milwaukee, St. Louis
NL South: Atlanta, Cincinnati, Florida, Houston
NL West: Arizona, San Diego, San Francisco, L.A. Dodgers

Each team would play its division opponents 14 times, play nine games against each of the other teams in its league and have 12 interleague games, with no trading off of opponents.

Yes, the Jays are still in the AL East, but with a split-season format, they only have to outplay the Evil Empires for 81 games (which they did in the first half of 2000 and came close to doing in '05). For the organization, it's probably the most they can hope for: This way, they still keep their home dates against their two biggest draws, but now they have more of a fighting chance of making the playoffs again some day.

Conceivably, if a team was put in New Jersey or Connecticut or wherever, it could go in the AL East and the Jays could play in the North Division or whatever it's going to be called. Regardless, in a 16-team, four-division league with a split-season format, the Jays would have a better chance to make the post-season, at least conceptually.

As for the smart front office, well, that's another column.

OTHER BUSINESS

• Mark Fainaru-Wada, one of the San Francisco Chronicle reporters who's facing a jail term for refusing to disclose his sources in his investigation of Barry Bonds, is confident of winning on appeal.
• Unlike the Washington Nationals most nights, one of their fans got to third base. (From Deadspin; probably not a good idea to look at this at work.) Best comment so far: "Like that never happened in Montreal."

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.