Big League Shuffle

Even if you don't follow baseball closely, you have probably heard Chicago Cub fans (columnist George Will is a particularly lachrymose example) wailing about how their beloved North Side team has not been in the World Series since -- horrors! -- 1945 or actually won one since -- worse horrors! -- 1908. As if to take pity on the star-crossed Cubs, Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent arranged for the club to play an easier schedule starting in 1993, a move prompted by the fact that the National League will grow from 12 to 14 teams next year. Sure, long-overdue geographic reform played a role in the four-club trade: the Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals would move from the National League's Eastern Division to the Western Division; the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds, two of the best clubs in baseball, would go East. But Vincent's secret agenda would give aging Cub stars Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson a fair shot at playing in the World Series before they retire.

So are they celebrating at ivy-clad Wrigley Field in Chicago? Think again, for this is 1992, when the courts play a bigger role in baseball than they do in tennis. The Cubs are suing Vincent, contending that he overstepped his powers to act in "the best interests of baseball" by ordering the team to switch divisions against its wishes. The real motivation of the Chicago Tribune Co., which owns the Cubs, is (surprise!) money: WGN, the Tribune-owned superstation that shows the Cubs games, is worried that more night games on the West Coast will mean lower TV ratings. True, the Atlanta Braves, with their own superstation WTBS, surmounted similar ratings problems. Their solution (Cub fans, take note): the Braves made it to last year's World Series.

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CREDIT: NO CREDIT

CAPTION: THE NEW LINEUP

The National League