Major League Baseball has approved of the sale of the Astros to Jim Crane today, and with it the announcement that the Astros will move to the American League in 2013 is official. If you remember back to my FanHouse days, I’ve written quite a bit about realignment and how dumb I think having unbalanced leagues and divisions are and I’m happy those days will finally be over. I don’t really care about the Astros either way (some of my worst memories of the 1990s at Three Rivers are hot summer Sunday afternoon games with Bagwell and Biggio destroying the Pirates and Drabek and Shane Reynolds on the mound dominating), but they seem like a weird choice to go to the AL given their extensive NL history. When Milwaukee flipped leagues, the city at least had an NL legacy. Houston has nothing to do with the AL and I would’ve thought moving a team like the Marlins or Diamondbacks would make more sense.
On a sadder note, I’m almost certain that making interleague play a constant “30 games per year” thing for every team is going to bring the DH to the NL within five years. Selig says things won’t change, but I don’t believe him. We might as well all just accept it now.
