All the politics of trying to get a major league baseball team in Portland has obscured the question of the feasibility of moving the only team that's available right now -- the Montreal Expos -- out here. From a baseball point of view (as opposed to a business point of view), can it be done?

One difficulty is that the Expos play in the Eastern Division of the National League. That means they play East Coast teams much more than West Coast teams. If the Expos came to Portland but stayed in the Eastern Division, the East Coast teams would be saddled with too much travel to get out here to play them.

So the Expos would have to move to a different division, which poses some interesting questions. Here are the National League division alignments at present:

East: Atlanta, Philadelphia, Florida, Montreal, New York

Central: Houston, St. Louis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Milwaukee

West: San Francisco, Arizona, Los Angeles, Colorado, San Diego

If Montreal went to the West, the East would need a new team, to make 5. My thought would be to take Milwaukee out of the Central and move it to the East, leaving the Central also with 5. The Milwaukee team is doing very poorly, on the field and at the box office, and it hasn't been in the National League all that long. So moving it to a different division shouldn't be too traumatic.

Another idea would be to move the Expos to the American League, which would cause much more of a commotion. But Portland in the American League West would be exciting. Here's the current alignment there:

East: New York, Boston, Toronto, Baltimore, Tampa Bay

Central: Chicago, Kansas City, Minnesota, Cleveland, Detroit

West: Seattle, Oakland, Anaheim, Texas

I'd like the National League option much better myself. Those who need to see the Yankees in person every year can continue to take the train up to Seattle. Besides, if Montreal jumped to the American League, they'd still have to move Milwaukee or somebody to the National League East.

Dang, this is fun.

On the less glamorous, financing, front, it was great to see Randy Leonard up on the blog comments last night in support of baseball. With him and Vera in tow, only one more city council member needs to say, "play ball." The city should chip in for the stadium construction with some ticket taxes, parking taxes and other assorted taxes that it can impose on those attending the games. I'm not sure the hotel/motel tax is going to be available. Heaven knows it's already been promised for lots of other things.

At our house, we're budgeting for season tickets.