No surprise if Sox sock it to Chicago by moving
As a weekend-plan White Sox season ticket holder, my stomach dropped when I read about the rumor that the White Sox could be sold, or possibly moved to Nashville. The reason for my anxiety is well-founded: Major League Baseball has a history of moving teams.
The current top two teams in the National League, the Braves and the Dodgers, were each founded in a different city. The Oakland A’s are moving to Las Vegas; in fact the A’s used to be The Kansas City A’s, and before that the Philadelphia A’s. Moving cities isn’t bad either for success on the field. The Braves, Dodgers and A’s all had success after changing cities.
The Giants, the Expos (Nats), the Rangers, the Twins, the Orioles, are all franchises that have moved around and either kept or changed their names. When the league was smaller it was common for major cities to have two teams. Boston and Philadelphia each had two teams, and for a time, New York had three. With the A’s move to Las Vegas, only New York and Chicago remain as cities where the same public transportation can be used to get to games. (It’s a stretch to consider the Dodgers/Angels and the Nationals/Orioles in the same city and/or metropolitan area.)
But having two teams in one city isn’t good for Major League Baseball. Like any business, MLB survives by branching out and spreading its footprint. MLB doesn’t care that a city or state isn’t paying for a new stadium. That’s just an excuse. MLB wants to expand its footprint.
With MLB expanding interleague play and adding the designated hitter, the differences between the leagues has diminished to the point where the intra-metropolitan rivalries are not what they once were: games between two unique styles of play, and games that were rare. MLB doesn’t gain any additional value from these rivalries anymore.
If history and the nature of business are reliable guides, then my anxiety is justified. The White Sox are likely to move.