Cubs’ View of Baseball Map Is Blocked by a Bottom Line

Of course, the Chicago Cubs are opposed to realignment. Since they last visited the World Series, the Cubs have had 47 chances to move back. Every time, they have refused to budge.

If you need one reason why the Cubs are pennant-less since the last World War, you only need examine the last few days.

Given a choice between better TV ratings or better baseball ratings, the Cubs would rather be cable-ready than playoff-ready.

Commissioner Fay Vincent is trying to do the Cubs a favor. He is moving them out of the National League East, where Chicago has gone two for 23 in division championships, and into the West, where the sub-.500 Cubbies would actually be contending for a title if Vincent had rendered this ruling a year earlier.

If realignment were in effect today, the National League West standings would have looked like this Thursday morning:

W-L Pct. GB St. Louis 42-41 .506 -- San Diego 43-42 .506 -- San Francisco 41-42 .494 1 Chicago 40-43 .482 2

The Cubs think they know their television audience. They think WGN viewers will tune out and turn away if made to wait two extra hours for night games on the West Coast.

The Cubs should think again.

WGN watchers don’t want earlier starting times, they want later games of significance. Later, as in September.

Which marquee would draw the bigger share within the Central Time Zone--the Cubs and the Padres, battling for first place, at 9 p.m. . . . or the Cubs and the Phillies, dragging their out-of-the-running rear ends through another dog-day 7 p.m. start?

The problem with the Cubs, and most of their baseball brethren, is that their field of vision extends from suite box to home plate and not one inch beyond. Exhibit A: All the hand-wringing and despair over Vincent’s shift of the Atlanta Braves and the Cincinnati Reds-- the two best teams in the league! --out of the West and into the East, in exchange for the Cubs and the Cardinals.

What, has Vincent gone mad?

He has knocked the league off its axis, thrown the sport off balance. Why, the Braves and the Reds and the Pirates are going to dominate the East for years and years and years.

Just like they dominated in 1989, right?

That year, the Reds lost 87 games and finished fifth in the NL West. The Braves lost 97 and finished sixth. In the NL East, the Pirates were 74-88, buried in fifth place, 19 games behind the division champion . . . Chicago Cubs.

The game has always been cyclical, but now the wheels are spinning on an Indy track. The Braves and the Twins go from dead last in 1990 to the World Series in 1991. The Dodgers finish a game back in 1991 and by the following July 4, the deficit is 13. Rebuilding programs now takes weeks, at least outside Orange County. Budding dynasties crumble within months.

The Braves and the Reds are hot items this minute, but examine the record for the past decade.

Atlanta: Two division titles (1982, 1991).

Cincinnati: One (1990).

Chicago: Two (1984, 1989).

St. Louis: Three (1982, 1985, 1987).

Over the same span, the Cardinals lead all NL clubs with three World Series appearances.

So the West hardly figures to be ravaged by the trade. Before long, it might even be better.

St. Louis has been on the rise ever since Joe Torre was named manager and is currently running a strong second behind Pittsburgh. The Cubs, at the moment, are fair-to-middling, but put them in the Dodgers’ division, and keep loading them with old Dodgers (Jim Lefebvre, Mike Morgan and Kal Daniels are spreading the word), and they could very well commence the era of realignment in the playoffs.

Realignment is good. Good for baseball, good for the country. Soon, small schoolchildren, and Dan Quayle, will know that Atlanta is east of Chicago, because it says so, right in the sports section. Soon, exasperated parents will be done with the query, “If east is east and west is west, why do the East Division Cardinals have to travel 500 miles east to play the West Division Braves?”

Everyone will be less confused. Even the Cubs, who are so discombobulated right now that they have filed suit against Vincent over the possibility of being forced to play three more West Coast night games than they do already.

As members of the NL East, the Cubs will play 12 night games in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco this season.

As members of both the NL West and the Central Time Zone, the Houston Astros will play 15 night games in those same cities.

St. Louis is in the same time zone as Chicago and Houston. Denver, where the expansion Colorado Rockies are based, is an hour removed. Where is the burden? Where is the distress?

And where, for that matter, are all the great rivalries the Cubs accuse Vincent of eradicating?

The Cubs and the Mets? Peaked in the ‘60s.

The Cubs and the Pirates? Chicago and Pittsburgh are hockey rivals.

The Cubs and the Expos? Maybe the Andre Dawson Fan Club is interested. Anyone else?

The Cubs and the Padres once waged a scintillating playoff series, in 1984, even if one team was dressed like combo burritos. The Cubs and the Giants have a postseason history. The Cubs and the Dodgers have Morgan, Daniels and Fred Claire. New rivalries await.

So call off the lawyers and put on the coffee. The Cubs and their fans have nothing to lose but a little sleep.