In my last column, I wondered aloud why the two leagues in Major League Baseball — the American League and National League — have a different number of teams (the AL has 14, and the NL 16). Baseball, I concluded, is a game of details, and if two leagues are competing for the same prize, they ought to be competing under the same conditions. That means, quite simply (to borrow from my science vocabulary): where possible, hold everything equal.
