Let's talk realignment

Any third-grader with a calculator in hand can tell you there's something out of whack with Major League Baseball's alignment.

Six teams in one division and four in another just doesn't compute in any manner that can be explained. Mathematically, National League Central teams have a 16.7 percent shot at winning their division, while the four-pack in the American League West has a 25 percent chance.

In the category of Serious Measures for Serious Times, here is a sensible, logical way to fix the problem and improve the sport.

Take the Houston Astros and the San Diego Padres, and move them to the AL West.

Shift the Seattle Mariners to the NL West.

Voila! Balance is achieved, and the travel budget makes infinitely more sense.

With these changes, we would have 15 AL teams, 15 NL teams. Six divisions, each housing five teams. This effectively eliminates the imbalance and unfairness generated by a six-team NL Central and a four-team AL West.

Yes, the schedule must be adjusted. No problem. One Interleague series is staged at all times. Call it the Spotlight Series.

The Astros give the Rangers a full-time rival. When AL West teams travel to Texas three times a year, they hit both cities. No more Dallas to Seattle junkets for travel-weary AL West clubs.

The same general dynamic, more loosely applied, links the Mariners and the Rockies in the new NL West.

 Finding an Interleague rival for Seattle remains a problem, but San Diego never really worked anyway.

The Padres adopt the Angels as their new division rivals, replacing the Dodgers. That was always fairly one-sided anyway. The Dodgers never have gotten too worked up about San Diego. Their heart was always in San Francisco, a connection to one the most intense rivalries in sports history when the clubs were hostile New York neighbors.

While the NL West retains its one traditional, unbreakable rivalry, the Diamondbacks emerge as the Padres' Interleague goes. That makes a lot more sense than Padres-Mariners ever did.

Flaws are sure to be found with this idea. No plan is foolproof. But it seems clear that the benefits and advantages significantly outweigh any negatives.

Balance is everything in life. The smartest man I ever met - John Wooden - always pointed that out. There is no balance in 16 teams in one league, 14 in another. There is no balance - or fairness -- in one division housing six teams, another four.

Balance is two leagues with 15 teams each, six divisions with five teams apiece.

If an owner or two has to make a sacrifice by identifying with a new league, so be it. It's for the greater good. In difficult times, that's how we're supposed to be thinking, right?