More about that Central Division

From the Seats, January 12, 2005

MINNEAPOLIS - It is most likely the least talked about division in baseball, unless your team plays in it. The Midwest, viewed often as the “fly over states” and not much is thought about them. The last World Series appearance to come from the central was the 1997 Cleveland Indians who lost to the Florida Marlins. The Twins are the last team, of all central teams to win the World Series in 1991.

The Central Division was created in 1994, and since that time Cleveland has been the only team to be in the World Series. Excluding those two World Series appearances, the Twins are the only ones to make it past the ALDS, doing that in 2002. Otherwise, every playoff team, form 1995 to present day has lost in the first round of the playoffs.

Cleveland, Minnesota and Chicago are the only teams to have made playoff appearances since the Central has been formed.

So it only makes sense why other teams and their fans would, or could overlook the Central Division.

In all attempts to change that the Indians, White Sox and Tigers are trying to make their best attempt yet to steal the division away from the Twins, who are set to make a good run at it themselves. With it being January it is difficult to argue who will contend and who will not. But one has to think from what they saw last year that Cleveland should be able to stick with the Twins to the end. They have young players that continue to improve. The White Sox seem to stick around for a while, if they stay around all season and have enough umph and team play to get through the dog days of summer, they could compete too. The Twins still have key players in place to get back to the playoffs. With that it should make for a fun, competitive division.

It wont get the publicity that the coast get, but it might be enough to turn some heads and make some fans realize that there is some pretty good baseball in the “fly over states”.