Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 8/7/84; site ucbvax.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!ucbvax!wildbill
From: wildbill@ucbvax.ARPA (William J. Laubenheimer)
Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Tigers baseball
Message-ID: <6772@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 5-May-85 02:10:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.6772
Posted: Sun May  5 02:10:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 5-May-85 23:43:02 EDT
References: <2555@drutx.UUCP> <4500030@hpmtla.UUCP> <606@fisher.UUCP>
Reply-To: wildbill@ucbvax.UUCP (William J. Laubenheimer)
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 47
Summary: 

>	(1) the AL doesn't believe in divisional play, and schedules
>	    the same number of games in an inter-divisional (e.g.
>	    Detroit-Texas) matchup as in an intra-divisional (e.g.
>	    Detroit-Milwaukee) one, and

Not quite. You get 13 games with each division opponent and 12 with each
non-division opponent.

>	(2) Each AL Eastern team has seven AL West opponents, but only
>	    six from the East.
>
>					David Rubin

Well, in the NL, you have 6 opponents in the other division and only 5 in
your own - so what?

Actually, the reason this happens is that Major League Baseball has decided
that the fairest way to build a schedule is to have each team play a certain
fixed number of games against each team in its own division and a different
(and smaller) fixed number of games against each team in the other division
in its league, and that 162 games should be played. If we use "d" to
represent the number of division games and "n" to represent the number
of non-division games, we get a Diophantine equation (equation with integer
coefficients, only integer solutions desired) for each league:

(NL) 5d+6n=162
(AL) 6d+7n=162

The solutions for the NL equation include the current d=18, n=12, which
results in a nice schedule where you see division rivals more often, but
still have enough competition with non-division opponents. Unfortunately,
the only solution anywhere near the "reasonable" range for the AL equation
is d=13, n=12. The next solution is d=20, n=6, which begins to look a lot
like the current NBA schedule where you only play two games against each
team from the other conference.

Interestingly enough, if you try a 154-game schedule (the way it used to be)
in the AL, the most reasonable solution is d=14, n=10, which also looks pretty
good. This has the advantage that you wouldn't need yet another set of
asterisks to put in the record book, and you can get a "perfectly balanced"
schedule with equal numbers of home and away games against each team.
But would the owners ever agree to anything that would reduce their beloved
revenue? Naaaah...

                                        Bill Laubenheimer
----------------------------------------UC-Berkeley Computer Science
     ...Killjoy went that-a-way--->     ucbvax!wildbill