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.

Over the five decades since the Dodgers and Giants left New York, no one has suggested putting a third team in the New York City marketplace. No one, that is, until the owner of the Oakland Athletics, Lewis Wolff, spoke to a New York Times reporter recently about placing a second Major League Soccer franchise in the area. Wolff told the Times ,”Frankly, I’d like to see a third baseball team in New York.”

One obstacle is that the city itself cannot afford to foot the cost of another stadium — but New Jersey might. New York is already paying for Fred Wilpon’s Brooklyn Cyclones stadium, the Staten Island Yankees facility, and is contributing to infrastructure for the new baseball parks being built in the Bronx and Queens, even though the Yankees’ and Mets’ ownership is also footing the bill. For decades, New Jersey politicians have been trying to land a baseball team and build a stadium. The target of their affection was George Steinbrenner, and they did try to entice him to move the Bronx Bombers to New Jersey on numerous occasions — and failed. The politicians also failed to get voters to say yes to the funding of a baseball park in the 1980s. But the way stadiums are funded in 2007 is different than it was during the years that New Jersey was chasing Steinbrenner. Today,

cities and states are turning over municipal land to sports owners in a straight business deal. The new Giants–Jets stadium could serve as a primer for any baseball owner who thinks New Jersey can make him a ton of cash. It’s a simple formula: Give up land, let the owner build a stadium, give the owner all sorts of tax breaks and incentives, and let the owner also develop a village surrounding the park that includes retail, commercial, and residential space. It is what Wolff hopes to do in Fremont, Calif., with his A’s, it is what the Cardinals’ ownership is doing in St. Louis, and it is what Islanders owner Charles Wang plans to do in Uniondale.

An owner also knows that the New York market has cable TV money available. The Madison Square Garden network has funds available — more than $50 million per year — that were once used to pay for the rights to Yankees games, before that team obtained its own station. This is more money than any other owner is presently getting (except for Arte Moreno and Angels, who get $55 million from Fox Sports). Wolff, who is looking for a new home for his A’s, and art dealer Jeffrey Loria, who wants a new stadium for his Marlins, won’t come anywhere near that kind of money in their present markets. And the MSG network could use baseball broadcasts to fill the summer void left when the Knicks and Rangers finish their seasons.

Another obstacle is a 1922 Supreme Court ruling that granted baseball an anti-trust exemption and monopoly status. One of the effects of the 1922 ruling is that owners can block any franchise shift. When Cincinnati and Pittsburgh’s ownerships were toying with the idea of replacing the Dodgers and Giants in Brooklyn and Manhattan, the other six owners in the NL, without reason, could have stopped them. It goes without saying that Yankees’ president Randy Levine and chief operating officer Lonn Trost, will agree with Steinbrenner and block any other owner that wants to come into New York territory. Mets owner Wilpon could act the same way. While Phillies’ owner Bill Giles does not stake any claim to the New York territory, there is an overlap in central New Jersey, and Giles could lose some customers who might feel that it is easier to go to a game in northern New Jersey than in Philadelphia.

The only recourse in overturning the 1922 ruling is to get Congress to write new legislation and have the President sign it into law. There seems to be no incentive for anyone in Congress, though, to overturn the ruling to put another team in the area, nor does there seem to be any willingness from any owner to sue his fellow owners. This is all despite the fact that the New York City marketplace has more dollars available in the area than all other available markets, including Los Angeles and Chicago, which already have two teams each.

Despite this legislative hurdle, Wolff has finally said something publicly that has been strictly taboo for decades. A third major league baseball team should be in the New York area. After 50 years, it’s about time.

evanjweiner@yahoo.com