JUST STAY PUT

No good reason to realign divisions

SURE. Logically, it makes no sense. Logically, in baseball, the American League and the National League stopped being bitter enemies decades ago, stopped using different umpires years ago, and stopped playing under different rules this year when the designated hitter became a universal element.

Logically, in football, the AFC and the NFC have never really been rivals at all, since from the start of the merger there were three teams from the old NFL (Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cleveland) that joined the old AFL teams to strike a balanced league. Since everyone has played under one shield, since 1970, there have never been any notable decrees of conference pride.

So yes, every once in a while, when the idea is floated that MLB and the NFL should radically realign, there are few rational explanations to offer up why that shouldn’t happen. The NBA and NHL have merrily divided their two conferences strictly along geographic lines, with the Mississippi River unofficially providing the dividing line.

And, with apologies to Sam Cooke, geography has its place.

But since when are sports devoted to the practice of logic? Sports inspires grown men (and women) to paint their faces in team colors. Sports requires that during a rally, you stay seated in your chair no matter how fiercely nature calls. Sports keeps you up until crazy hours of the morning on a work night because your team is playing on the coast.

Sports parted ways with logic years ago.

Advocates of realignment scoff at the folly of keeping alive an artificial separation. It drives them completely batty when the answer to the question, “Why should we keep old league alliances intact?” is inevitably this: “Because it’s always been that way.”

Again, in life, in business, “It’s always been that way” is a losing attitude. In sports, it’s almost comforting. And sure, in New York, and in the other markets that have more than one team, it is a unique issue. On one level: Would it be interesting to have the Mets and Yankees share the NL (or AL) East, or the Jets and the Giants to share the NFC (or AFC) East? I suppose.

But it’s also worth noting that the Knicks and Nets have shared the NBA’s Atlantic Division since 1976, and though they’ve met a few times in the Eastern Conference playoffs, there really never has been a signature Nets-Knicks moment. And the Rangers have had some epic and unforgettable playoff battles with the Islanders and the Devils going back to J.P. Parise. But as great as those series were, they were never going to be in the Stanley Cup final.

We can still get Mets-Yankees in the World Series. We’ve seen it.

We can still get Jets-Giants in the Super Bowl. We haven’t seen that (though you can read about it in Dan Jenkins’ forever classic “Semi-Tough.”)

We can still get Rams-Chargers for the Super Bowl, and White Sox-Cubs for the World Series.

Now, is that enough to provide a sound counterargument to realignment?

Probably not, no. Momentum seems to be gathering for it. And look, National League fans have adapted to the DH. Pro football has survived without the blood feud that was the AFL/NFL wars. Sometimes change is inevitable, even if things seem to be working better than ever. Still … I’ll leave you with these. And tell me these don’t just look weird (baseball based on expansion to 32 teams and eight-team divisions):

NL/AL East: Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Orioles, Nationals, Phillies, Blue Jays, Braves

NFC/AFC East: Jets, Giants, Bills, Patriots

Goodbye Eagles and Cowboys. Hello … weirdness. If it ain’t broke …