This group also could be known as the “Left Outs.” I used the headline – which should be spelled Capital – because that’s what Frank Howard was called, and I always liked the big guy from Ohio.
As for the groups, my problem was that I could make six or seven logical groups out of the nine, but some teams were going to be left out.
New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio are adjacent to each other, but none can be in the same group as the others because they’re too strong. New York has the northeastern states.
Pennsylvania, in the Atlantic group above, has the states along the mid-Eastern seaboard. So where do we go with Ohio?
They get the mish-mosh. They get Michigan, at least partly because of Woody and Bo, and Michigan is kind of left out of the Great Lakes group (which admittedly is dumb, because most of the Great Lakes formed the state). There’s Virginia and West Virginia. D.C. didn’t fit in the Atlantic Group. And Europe; someone has to take them. It makes sense for it to be one of the East Coast groups.
Ohio is the class of this group, pretty easily. It’s one of the unbalanced groups in my opinion. Again, the battle should be to see who stays out of fourth place.
As I see it:
1. Ohio. See above. Too much everything. Cy Young and Roger Clemens head the rotation.
2. Michigan. Kind of a sleeper overall, and will easily make it through to the tournament. Maybe not enough offense to really threaten, but the pitching is strong and deep.
3. West Virginia. A nice “little” team with a strong infield and OK pitching. It’s either them or …
4. Virginia. This team is a little hard to figure, and should be much stronger in 10 years or so. Even now, if they beat up on the bottom two enough, they’ll advance.
5. D.C. Not really that good, but still better than …
6. Europe. Blyleven and Mullane are interesting guys, and would probably be interesting teammates. Not enough help though.
Next: The Central.
Base instincts 