As Major League Baseball teams continued their spring ritual throughout Florida and Arizona, a report was published this week in the USA Today. According to this report, Major League Baseball under the direction of Commissioner Bud Selig will soon submit a plan to realign the major league teams and their divisions.

The newest expansion teams of Arizona and Tampa Bay will first switch leagues. Then an elaborate reorganization will take occur. Once the smoke finally clears, the report indicated that there would be three divisions in the American League and four divisions in the National League left standing. The AL would have one wild card playoff representative. In the NL, it will be divisional winner take all.

The Cardinals would be directly affected by this new proposal. They would be placed into a division with Atlanta, Tampa Bay, and Florida. Not only will the Red Birds be assigned into a division which does not include the Cubs, but they will assigned into a division which includes the tomahawk chopping National League Team of the 1990's.

Immediately, the Red Bird spin machine went to work. Team President Mark Lamping, General Manager Walt Jocketty, and Field Manager Tony La Russa all went on the record to any open microphone or newspaper reporter to down play this proposal. One of the Cardinal owners reportedly met with Selig to convince him of the errors of his ways.

Then, the Home Team brought out its big gun. Mark Mc Gwire went on the publicly record to denounce and ridicule this latest attempt to improve the national past time.

Proposed realignment was a hot topic this week on squawk radio. My WGNU callers downplayed the suggestion. Others could not understand why the Cubs were not combined with the Cardinals. Others wondered why Houston or Cincinnati did not draw the short straw of being placed with the Time Warner Braves.

To all you members of the Cardinal organization and all you supporters: please take a deep breath. Now repeat after me, this realignment plan will not occur.

It's not because of the pressure put on Bud Selig.

It will be because the Major League Baseball Players Association will not allow it.

And their vote speaks the loudest.

We have learned during the decade of the 1990's that no major change in baseball occurs without the okey-dokey of the MLBPA. Their mouthpiece (and the REAL commissioner of baseball) Donald Fehr has not been quoted anywhere of his or his association's thoughts on this proposal. Their involvement is vital for any proposal to fly.

You may recall that in the early 1990's Major League Baseball contemplated a moderate form of realignment. At that time, the proposal would change each league's two divisions into a three divisional set-up and the introduction of the wild card. The game's baseball executives even went so far was to publicly announce their intentions.

Do you remember what happened then? The MLBPA (led by Commissioner Fehr) declined the proposal. That refusal resulted in the game temporarily scrapping the three divisional realignment. Although baseball ultimately changed the game's structure, this change did not occur without the approval of the Players Association.

We learned at that time that you don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask of the ol' Lone Ranger, and you don't mess around with the Major League Baseball Players Association.

So here we are again. As the collective bargaining agreement nears its expiration date, Fehr undoubtedly will want something in return for his players to agree to this new structure. Even newly coronated Commissioner-In-Name Fehr with his newest powers and authorities will not be able to stand up to the MLBPA.

If the baseball owners are absolutely, positively determined to push and insist on realignment without the Players' Association blessing, this issue may end up becoming the first salvo on the upcoming collective bargaining agreement negotiations.

The baseball ownership group may feel good enough to think that they are going to determine the rules for who wants to be baseball's next multi-millionaire. You may recall that many of the baseball owners also have NBA teams in their portfolios. It is widely accepted that the NBA owners won that round of negotiations with their players.

But, the baseball owners will quickly be reminded that there is a huge difference between the Major League Baseball Players Association and their counterparts in the NBA.

Fehr and the MLBPA have not lost a fight yet. It would be very hard to believe that the Association would simply nod their heads in agreement as the owners propose this major structure change. How does the phrase "what's in it for us" sound?

So Cardinal brass and Red Bird fans everywhere please relax. You will still be able to make that summer sabbatical to the friendly confines of Wrigley Field. You will still be able to despise the Cubs for a reason. You will not have to worry about seeing with the Tomahawk chopping yuppie, fair weather Atlanta faithful in your division.

You can thank the Major League Baseball Players Association. Please mail your thank you notes to the attention of Donald Fehr, esq.

As recent history has shown us, when it comes to Major League Baseball, the inmates really do run the asylum.