In 1978, voters in California approved Proposition 13, which greatly favored older and more affluent existing property owners while retroactively penalizing younger people just starting out.
Sixteen years later, voters in the same state approved Proposition 187 (the number just happens to coincide with the section of the California Penal Code that deals with murder, as artists of the "gangsta rap" genre have never let us forget ever since), which would have disqualified undocumented immigrants from receiving welfare benefits from the state; but it was declared unconstitutional on the grounds that individual states have no right to make their own immigration laws.
Which brings us to Proposition 154.
In 1961 (in the American League) and the following year (in the National League), Major League Baseball's regular-season schedule was increased from 154 games to 162.
The reason for this was simple math: prior to those years, each team played each of the other seven teams in their own league 22 times, and 7 X 22 = 154.
But the expansion of each league to 10 teams brought about a change, in that each team now had nine other teams in their own league, so they were made to play each other 18 times each, and 9 X 18 = 162.
Had the owners been clairvoyant, they would have known that there was going to be another round of expansion, to 12 teams in each league, in 1969. Then, they could have had teams play their 11 rivals 14 times each, since 11 X 14 = 154.
But no: Bowie Kuhn, the tallest commissioner in baseball history (at 6-foot-5), insisted that "it wouldn't be practical to have a first-place team and a 12th-place team" (even though the National League had 12 teams from 1892 through 1899 — and 13 in 1884). Of course, what Kuhn actually meant was that the sport could make more money if both leagues had two divisions, and there could be a best-of-five League Championship Series before the World Series (the LCS was lengthened to best-of-seven in 1985).
The new regular-season schedule called for teams in the same division to continue to play their five division rivals 18 times (5 X 18 = 90) with 12 meetings apiece vs. the six teams in the other division (6 X 12 = 72) for 90 + 72 = 162.
For 1977 and 1978 only, with the addition of the Blue Jays and Mariners as expansion teams, the AL observed a format under which division rivals played each other 15 times, while non-division foes met either 10 or 11 times (continuing the 90 + 72 = 162 procedure) — but 10, 11, and 15 turned out to be numbers that did not fit neatly into any schedule, so in 1979 the Junior Circuit went to a "balanced schedule" under which division rivals played each other 13 times and teams not from the same division 12 times. The NL followed this pattern when the Marlins and Rockies entered that league in 1993 — never mind that this change meant that teams ended up playing more games outside their division (84) than within (78).
It was not until 2001 that intradivisional play was again emphasized — with 19 meetings, or 20 in some matchups within the four-team AL West; there were only 15 or 16 meetings between teams in the six-team NL Central.
When the Astros switched from the National League to the American League in 2013, it gave every division five teams, with all division rivals playing each other 19 times — and the advent of universal interleague play in 2023 resulted in the reduction in the number of intradivision games in both leagues to 13 meetings in all matchups.
After the owners and the MLBPA settle their continuing labor dispute, it will be time to roll back the regular-season schedule to its traditional 154 games.
And why is that?
On November 4, 2001, the Diamondbacks edged the Yankees 3-2 in Game 7 of the World Series. By contrast, on October 4, 1955, the then-Brooklyn Dodgers won Game 7 of the 1955 World Series 2-0, also over the Yankees ("Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team," sang Billy Joel in We Didn't Start the Fire of that year) — a difference of a full month.
And think of all the awesome things that can be done with a shortened regular season.
For starters, the 5 or 6 seed in the new 12-team playoff format, who will often have finished with a better record than the 3 or 4 seed (this will be especially true if expansion creates four 4-team divisions in each league), can host Game 2 of the new Wild Card Series, which will only lengthen the total postseason by two days, when a 154-game schedule will shorten the regular season by 10 days.
There can also be a couple more days off for each team during the regular season (traditionally, teams used to almost always get Mondays and Thursdays off); either that or these awful games in March can be done away with — plus teams that finish tied for either a division title or a wild card can once again settle it on the field in a one-game playoff.
And how can a new 154-game schedule work?
52 intradivision games for each team, playing one such rival 18 times and the other two 17 times (this could result in bringing back another tradition — the one where all games played after Labor Day are within the same division).
81 interdivision games within the same league, with each team playing the three teams that had a corresponding finish within their division — first vs. first, second vs. second, third vs. third, and fourth vs. fourth from the previous season — nine times. and the other nine teams six times.
12 interleague games against all four teams from a division of the other league, the divisional assignments rotating according to a four-year cycle, plus a three-game series against each of the teams in the other three divisions in the other league that had a corresponding finish in their division the previous season.
52 + 81 + 12 + 9 = 154.
And with the season being shortened this time around, there will be no need to worry about any "asterisks."
Have you hugged a "purist" lately?
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