A most immodest proposal

 Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred tossed a hand grenade into the bouillabaisse the other day, and, no, it wasn't admitting the whole ghost-runner-in-extra-innings thing was a lint-brained idea. Although it was.

No, sir. This time Rob let it slip that perhaps it was time to turn the entire game upside down, dump all the pieces and radically rearrange them.

He said -- perhaps -- the day would soon come when MLB completely re-organized itself along geographical lines, changing the entire landscape the way an 8.5 quake would change the landscape of, say, L.A. In other words, the Cubs and White Sox would be in the same division. Ditto the Mets and Yankees. Ditto, I don't know, the Guardians and Reds, the Royals and the Cardinals, the Orioles and Nationals, the Rangers and Astros.

"Hey, what about us?" the Seattle Mariners might ask. "We're up here all alone in the Pacific Northwest."

"And what about us?" the Colorado Rockies might chime in. "The Front Range gets mighty lonely at night."

The answer could be, MLB will add a team in Eugene and perhaps a team in Puyallup (Hey, look, it's the Puyallup Fightin' Polyps!) to keep the Mariners company. The Rockies, meanwhile, will be sent back to Triple A where they belong.

Anyway, this is a radical notion Manfred let run free, even more radical than the ghost runner. Whether or not it would be as unnecessary and stupid -- well, who knows? 

What we do know is it would completely bumfuzzle the geezers who still watch baseball, provoking the usual consarn-its and shaking of bony fists. On the other hand, as Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay pointed out on his radio show the other day, if it made interleague play superfluous, it might be worth all the chaos.

Interleague play, Kay believes, has ruined the All-Star Game, and also the World Series. This is an undisputable fact, at least in the Blob's estimation. When everyone plays everyone all the time, the intrigue is gone. And the intrigue -- whose style of baseball is superior, the AL's or the NL's? -- is a lot of what made the All-Star Game and World Series worth watching.

Now, the All-Star Game and Series are just a bunch of players who've already played against one another half a dozen times. Takes all the fun out of it.

So, what the hell. Let Manfred's most immodest proposal become reality. Baseball probably isn't so far gone it requires such a complete teardown, but let's face it: The joint is looking pretty shabby these days.

I say go for it. I mean, as a geezer myself, I still think the Astros are in the National League and the Brewers are in the American half the time. So the bumfuzzlement train has already left the station where I'm concerned.

Besides, I like shaking my bony fist and shouting "Consarnit!" every so often. It's one of life's pleasures in these advancing days.