Realignment

Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent yesterday ordered the National League realigned starting in 1993, sending the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals to the West Division and the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds to the East.Vincent said he is using his "best interests of baseball" power to force the geographically correct realignment, which the Cubs oppose. He acknowledged that the decision could lead to a legal challenge of his authority.NL teams have played in their current divisions since divisional play began in 1969, and Tribune Co., which owns the Cubs, may sue.NL owners voted 12-2 in March in favor of realignment, but the Cubs used their vote to block the moves.

FORT WORTH, Texas -- The Texas Rangers' neighborhood is on the verge of significant change.At the least, the Rangers may finally be placed in the same division as the Houston Astros, with the intention of creating an intense Texas rivalry.At the extreme, the Rangers could be just a small cog in a massive realignment of major-league baseball that would sweep away the National and American leagues as they've been known for 97 years.Instead, baseball's 30 teams would be split into two leagues, one consisting of two seven-team divisions and another of two eight-team divisions.

OK, let's assume the NFL really is going to expand in this millennium as promised. Expansion means realignment and realignment means trouble.At least it did the last time the NFL tried it. That was in 1970, four years after the merger with the despised AFL. When then-commissioner Pete Rozelle forced the issue, he encountered a room full of reluctant owners. It took names drawn from a hat to realign, and a $1 million carrot to get three teams to jump to the newly created AFC. Those three teams were Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

Major League Baseball Players Association chief Donald Fehr never has been afraid to say no to baseball ownership. He is the stubborn union leader who blocked baseball's attempt to put a cap on salaries, and he has emerged as the most powerful voice in the debate over realignment.The San Francisco Giants can cry all they want about the negative effects of the radical realignment plan that would put them in the same league with the Oakland A's, but Giants owner Peter McGowan does not have the power to stop it. Fehr can tell the owners tomorrow that it isn't going to happen and it isn't.

Everyone agrees that Obrecht Road must be improved to allow safer access to Route 32 in Sykesville. The town is grappling with how to improve the high-traffic road, the only major connector between Routes 97 and 32, at its northern border.Faced with two possibilities, the town is pushing for both a realignment of Obrecht Road in a loop around the north end of Fairhaven Retirement Community and an extension to Third Avenue through town to the highway."The town's position is that we need two roads," said Mayor Jonathan S. Herman last night at a public hearing, which drew state, county and town officials and about 75 residents.

Personal agendas will give way to the greater good in the NFL this week. They will if the league is going to achieve a 2002 realignment during its three-day owners' meetings, anyway. Much of the structure of the new eight-division, 32-team setup is in place. At least four divisions are already firmed up -- the NFC East and North, and the AFC East and West. Left for the most contentious debate is which teams fill out the NFC West, AFC North and AFC South. That debate renews itself today in a Rosemont, Ill., hotel near Chicago.

CLEVELAND -- Major League Baseball's schedule/format committee met for 90 minutes yesterday to discuss realignment, but no decision was made on the format for the 1998 season.The committee continues to examine a variety of options aimed at geographic realignment and enhanced divisional play. The most likely scenario has the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays moving from the American League West to the AL East, the Detroit Tigers moving to the AL Central, the Houston Astros switching leagues to replace the Devil Rays in the AL West and the Kansas City Royals moving into the National League Central.

The NHL is about to find out just how much impact new commissioner Gary Bettman has. Now that the league has expanded by five teams in three years, realignment is likely, and Bettman not only hopes to get it done, but he also expects to have it done by April 1."For one thing, he is approaching it differently from the way it was done in the past," said Washington Capitals general manager David Poile, when asked about the chances that realignment would happen."Every other time we've tried this, everyone just shows up at a meeting, says what they think and nothing gets done.

Some Kays Mill Road residents say they oppose a plan to realign part of their road and close another portion because the ++ changes would increase traffic speed and volume.Three residents attended a public hearing at the County Office Building yesterday afternoon and presented the commissioners with a petition opposing the closure. The petition was signed by 50 people.The commissioners sponsored the hearing to receive public comments on a plan to close 1,300 feet of Kays Mill Road, off Route 140 near Finksburg.

WASHINGTON -- A federal watchdog agency has criticized the Navy for providing sketchy documentation to justify its proposed list of base closings and wants officials to explain the realignment plan.The General Accounting Office said yesterday that the Navy had "insufficient documentation" to support its proposed list, which calls for the closings of a military laboratory in St. Mary's County, Md., and the realignment of three other Navy labs in the state.The GAO's criticisms are a boon to Maryland lawmakers, who for months have protested the Defense Department's inclusion of military laboratories on the closings list.