Same Old Song and Dance, My Friends

Commissioner Bud Selig is still spewing the partyline regarding contraction. As far as relocating franchises is concerned:

"I've said about relocation -- they'll be relocation after we've changed our economic system. Contraction is going to be take place before relocation. We will relocate teams in the future, but we need to solve out internal problems first.''

In truth, relocating a franchise does nothing to the system as a whole. It should improve one team's situation at the expense of no other team. It could have nothing but a salubrious effect on MLB as a whole. Expansion, however, could exacerbate existing problems. So why did the majors expand in '98? Maybe, just maybe because the problems are complete fiction that were invented for the labor negotiations to promulgate the owners' position. What else makes sense?