This is true? - Geographic oddities that defy conventional wisdom

[jp the roadgeek]

Milwaukee now is in the NL is it not?  When the four expansion teams changed the divisions in the 90's, did they move the Brewers across the league boundary to balance it out?

The Brewers moved so there wouldn't be interleague play every day of the season by having 16 NL and 14 AL teams.  That change was undone in 2013 by the Astros moving to the AL West.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Heck, all of this remind me of the third tier of association football in Spain (Named Segunda B), which is split into four groups of 20 teams each. Groups 2, 3 and 4 usually consist of teams from the North, East and South respectively, but group 1 gets messed up for some seasons, sometimes combining teams from Galicia (in the Northwest), Madrid and the Canary Islands.

[mgk920]

Milwaukee now is in the NL is it not?  When the four expansion teams changed the divisions in the 90's, did they move the Brewers across the league boundary to balance it out?

IIRC, the Brewers were moved to the National league in the early 00s.   More recently, the Houston Astros were moved from the National league to the American league to balance the leagues at 15 teams each in three five-team divisions and at least one interleague series at all times.

Mike

[Big John]

^^ Brewers moved to the NL starting in the 1998 season.

[Duke87]

Milwaukee now is in the NL is it not?  When the four expansion teams changed the divisions in the 90's, did they move the Brewers across the league boundary to balance it out?

In 1993, the Rockies entered the NL west and the Marlins entered the NL east. No other movements occurred. That one was simple!

The movements that happened for the 1998 season were thus:
- Devil Rays added to AL east
- Tigers moved from AL east to AL central
- Brewers moved from AL central to NL central
- Diamondbacks added to NL west

As for why MLB did not simply add the Devil Rays to the NL east and keep every existing team in its existing division, I don't know. It would have not resulted in any greater imbalance than what was actually done.

I suspect the reason has to do with both the Yankees and the Red Sox having their spring training in the general area and having somewhat of a fanbase there (expat northeasterners or otherwise). Placing the Tampa expansion franchise in the same division as these teams allowed it to draw larger crowds when they came to town, which would have been a rare occurrence if the Rays were an NL team.

[renegade]

Somehow, this thread got waaay off-topic ...

[freebrickproductions]

Huntsville, AL is closer to Atlanta, GA than Montgomery, AL.
Huntsville, AL is also closer to Knoxville, TN than Memphis, TN.

[empirestate]

Huntsville, AL is closer to Atlanta, GA than [to] Montgomery, AL.
Huntsville, AL is also closer to Knoxville, TN than [is] Memphis, TN.

Have I parsed this correctly? It seems to be an intriguing example of parallel sentence structure having non-parallel meanings.


iPhone

[KEVIN_224]

Let me take a stab at this: Despite being in the same state as Pittsburgh, Philadelphia is closer to Hartford, CT.

Philadelphia to Hartford: 177 miles
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh: 258 miles

Of course the distance I'm quoting from the Distance Calculator tool at indo(dot)com is straight-line mileage from point A to B.

[The Nature Boy]

Let me take a stab at this: Despite being in the same state as Pittsburgh, Philadelphia is closer to Hartford, CT.

Philadelphia to Hartford: 177 miles
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh: 258 miles

Of course the distance I'm quoting from the Distance Calculator tool at indo(dot)com is straight-line mileage from point A to B.

By that same token, Pittsburgh is also closer to Detroit (211 miles) than it is to Philly.

[Pete from Boston]

Let me take a stab at this: Despite being in the same state as Pittsburgh, Philadelphia is closer to Hartford, CT.

Philadelphia to Hartford: 177 miles
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh: 258 miles

Of course the distance I'm quoting from the Distance Calculator tool at indo(dot)com is straight-line mileage from point A to B.

I think if you've driven either of those routes (or are just familiar with the northeast) this isn't counterintuitive.  Pennsylvania's a long state for these parts.

[jp the roadgeek]

Let me take a stab at this: Despite being in the same state as Pittsburgh, Philadelphia is closer to Hartford, CT.

Philadelphia to Hartford: 177 miles
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh: 258 miles

Of course the distance I'm quoting from the Distance Calculator tool at indo(dot)com is straight-line mileage from point A to B.

I think if you've driven either of those routes (or are just familiar with the northeast) this isn't counterintuitive.  Pennsylvania's a long state for these parts.

Same with NY state.  NY City is closer to Portland, ME, Montreal (by 1 mile), and Richmond, VA than Buffalo, and that's cutting through PA too.

[halork]

I remember once being told that Ironwood, MI was closer to 5 other state capitals than to Lansing (We're talking driving distance here). Checking this out, it looks like Madison, St. Paul, Des Moines, and Springfield are definitely closer, and Bismarck is nearly equidistant. The provincial capital of Winnipeg is also closer.

[bing101]

San Francisco is close to the same size as Vallejo, CA if you look at land area  Yet San Francisco is only 46 square Miles.   Vallejo is 30 sq miles
Yet San Francisco has managed to carry 8 times the population of Vallejo.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallejo,_California


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco

[Road Hog]

The closest Walmart to Perryton, TX is in Kansas.

[Pete from Boston]

The closest Walmart to Perryton, TX is in Kansas.

It looks like the nearest Target to parts of New Hampshire is in New York.

[empirestate]

The closest Walmart to Perryton, TX is in Kansas.

It looks like the nearest Target to parts of New Hampshire is in New York.

It would have to be northern parts, as there's one in Keene.


iPhone

[The Nature Boy]

The closest Walmart to Perryton, TX is in Kansas.

It looks like the nearest Target to parts of New Hampshire is in New York.

It would have to be northern parts, as there's one in Keene.


iPhone

I tried a bunch of random northern NH towns and still got the Maine Targets as one of the closest. The Plattsburgh, NY Target came close for some of the northern towns on the CT River though.

[Desert Man]

The Palm Springs area is closer to the Mexican border: Indio-Coachella is 85 miles from Mexicali, than it is to downtown Los Angeles (126 miles). It appears San Diego is closer to us on the map and San Clemente is the closest beach, then I may be wrong. And both the Santa Barbara and Bakersfield areas are as close to L.A. like the Riverside-San Bernardino area (60-90 mile range).

[Pete from Boston]

The closest Walmart to Perryton, TX is in Kansas.

It looks like the nearest Target to parts of New Hampshire is in New York.

It would have to be northern parts, as there's one in Keene.


iPhone

I tried a bunch of random northern NH towns and still got the Maine Targets as one of the closest. The Plattsburgh, NY Target came close for some of the northern towns on the CT River though.

Since I made that post I've been meaning to get back and figure out why I thought places along the Connecticut River were closest to the Plattsburgh store, but seeing how it hasn't happened already, I don't think I'm going to. I hereby retire my commitment to this premise.

[freebrickproductions]

By car, Huntsville, AL is closer to Iuka, MS than it is to Guin, AL.

[dcbjms]

Fisher's Island, NY, is closer to Westerly, RI, than anywhere else in New York - interestingly, though, all the ferries to Fisher's Island come from Connecticut and it feels so much like CT that the island should be part of that state than NY.  In fact, Fisher's Island used to be part of Connecticut (as part of the Town of New London); somehow during the 19th century (IIRC) it got moved to NY for God-knows-what-reason.

[Mapmikey]

Memphis TN is closer to Falls City NE than to Mountain City TN
Mountain City is about the same distance to Buffalo NY as it is to Memphis

Mike

[The Nature Boy]

Memphis TN is closer to Falls City NE than to Mountain City TN
Mountain City is about the same distance to Buffalo NY as it is to Memphis

Mike

I once drove from Nashville to Asheville (try saying THAT one aloud), TN is a deceptively long state.

[jp the roadgeek]

There are 2 closer Walmarts in Magog and Sherbrooke, PQ to Newport, VT, than the nearest VT Walmart in St. Albans