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I don't think you can go back into the past for a solution. It's true that there were perennial losers in the first century of baseball, and fans still went to see the games. However, ticket prices were low, and there were not anywhere near as many competing entertainment options.

I just don't think baseball can survive as a major sport if it does not address the competitive balance issue. Fans today, for a number of reasons, are more fickle, and will not support perennial losers.

That would be sad, because baseball is an important part of our culture.

I think a good revenue sharing program, and moving a couple of franchises (Montreal -> Portland, Tampa Bay -> Washington) could help to address some of the problems.

Another thing baseball needs to do is to make sure kids can see baseball on TV or hear it on radio. MLB needs to stop nickel-and-diming out-of-market fans, and put more games on TV.

Baseball should certainly stop nickel and diming fans.

Competitive balance is achieved the old-fashioned way, if at all, by earning it either by spending, by thinking, or preferably by both.

Why move franchises instead of abolishing many of them? Move the Expos to Portland and a new stadium is built until the locxals decide they aren't like;y to have their "fair share" of championships. Washington, DC, has failed twice already. How many times to we have to massage national politicians ids by giving them an immediately handy baseball team that cannot support itself?

If you drastically reduce the number of franchises and concentrate the talent, pitching will return along with competitive balance to some extent without any of the artificial financial (socialistic???) Mickey Mouse being schemed up essentially as a way of distributing championships and making the game more interesting to gamblers like football and basketball.

If baseball players do not hold strong, the game will be ruined by today's virtual criminal class of incompetent owners. I would far prefer a strike, as lengthy as necessary, which would bankrupt the weak, undercapitalized, horridly mismanaged teams that were created to satisfy overblown egos in minimarkets incapable of supporting MLB than see the game turned into one more venue for those who think that a "fair share" of championships" is some sort of inherent right.

Good point. Although the Rangers have proven that you can spend an absurd amount of money and still end up with a bunch of cadavers on the field, the Florida Marlins HAD to blow their team apart after winning the World Series because they lost too much money winning it.