Is a Third N.Y. Baseball Team Feasible?

Imagine a baseball playoff race involving the Yankees, the Mets, and another team anchored in northern New Jersey. The Mets or Yanks would battle with the third team, sort of like the Dodgers and Giants of the Golden Era of New York baseball a half-century ago. Those two teams played their last New York City home games exactly 50 years ago this month and then departed for California. One present-day owner thinks that it is time for baseball to rectify its mistake and get a third team in the area.

The National League abandoned New York and squelched any plans for the Cincinnati Reds and the Pittsburgh Pirates to take the Dodgers' and Giants' place. Indeed, the league had no plans to return to New York until plans for a rival league, the Continental League, were unveiled in the late 1950s. In October 1960, after there was some congressional pressure put on the separate entities of the American and National Leagues, the NL expanded into New York and Houston.