In Major League Baseball and other American-based professional sports, contraction is the process for eliminating one or more teams from the majors. It has not happened in the modern era of baseball -- the last contraction was 1899, when the National League went from 12 to 8 clubs, precipitating the formation of the American League to serve some of the abandoned cities. Immediately after the 2001 World Series, baseball commissioner Bud Selig announced that contraction was under consideration for the 2002 season, most likely a two-team contraction although some have argued for four. The rushed timeframe of the 2001-02 offseason, though, makes this look unlikely. Negotiations are underway between MLB and the players' union to agree on a contraction plan for the 2003 season.

It is almost universally agreed that the Montreal Expos would be one of the two teams contracted. The Expos were brought into the league in 1969, and while they did well up into the mid-1980s, the past 15 years or so have been one indignity after another. In their one decent season, 1994, the strike kept them from participating in postseason play (and, incidentally, kept them from breaking what would become the Atlanta Braves' 10-season run of divisional titles). Recently, the Expos have been unable to get an English-language radio contract for their home games, local television wanted the Expos to pay them to show games, and average attendance has hovered around 7,000 per game (which would be middle-of-the-pack attendance in Class AAA). The only opposition to the Expos' contraction is from the Washington, DC area, which would prefer that the Expos move to Washington or Northern Virginia. This is in turn opposed by Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos, who views NoVA as part of his home market despite the virtual impossibility of reaching Baltimore from Northern Virginia in less than 2.5 hours (considering traffic) for a weeknight game.

The other club is more troublesome. Both the Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Devil Rays would appear to be good candidates; expanded into existence in 1993 and 1998 (respectively), neither has much history (although former Marlins owner Wayne Huizenga did buy the 1997 World Series) or many fans in the stands. The Marlins demanded a new stadium in downtown Miami to let them move out of Fort Lauderdale's Pro Player Stadium; the voters of Miami-Dade County just laughed at them. Problem is, the Florida Attorney General has made threatening noises about subpoenaing financial records and challenging baseball's antitrust exemption (given by Congress in the 1910s). So some other sacrificial lamb needs to be found.

Enter the Minnesota Twins and owner Carl Pohlad. The Twins also demanded a publicly-financed new stadium, which Minnesota voters rejected heavily at the polls in 2000, to replace the Metrodome. Granted, Pohlad is an extremely rich man and could build a place himself if he wanted to, but why not soak the taxpayers? When the stadium plan was rejected, Pohlad decided that if Minnesotans didn't want to hand over even more of their absurdly high taxes to him, then he'd just fold his team and go home, with a nice $250-$300 million parting gift from MLB for his troubles. Only problem is, the Twins have never been seriously lacking for fans. They were the first major league team to draw more than 3 million fans in a season, and they've consistently drawn low-to-mid-20-thousands even in the midst of a terrible recent slump. The team challenged for the AL Central pennant in 2001 before fading after the All-Star break with young stars that will only get better -- if they still have a team to play for.

The Minnesota AG quickly got an injunction ordering the team to fulfill the terms of its lease and play the 2002 season when word of this plan leaked out after the 2001 World Series. With the delay inherent in the U.S. legal system and the MLBPA's parallel legal maneuverings, this pretty much ended Selig's hopes for a quick, quiet death for two clubs (like Major League Soccer did this week with the Miami Fusion and Tampa Bay Mutiny). The contraction saga will likely be a running subtext to the 2002 season, as fans of teams likely to be folded start abandoning the clubs, the MLBPA folds this in with the negotiation of a new collective bargaining agreement, and players themselves worry about where a dispersal draft will take them.


Update 31 Dec 2002: These days, contraction looks rather unlikely. The players' union got Selig to back off on the idea for 2003 during the CBA negotiations, and MLB commenced to find some other option for the Montreal Expos for 2003. The Twins, by the way, won the AL Central Division, beat Oakland in the ALDS, then lost to eventual World Series champion Anaheim in the AL Championship Series.