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2:32:00 AM EDT
Interleague Play Returns, Is Still Stupid
By no means am I a traditionalist, a baseball purist or a Bud Selig hater. I like the wild card, I'm a fan of divisional realignment and I think the DH rule is a positive development in the evolution of baseball. I can't stand interleague play, though. For the life of me, I just can't understand the fascination.
I suppose it's cool to see the intra-state/intra-city rivalries, but that's really only eight series out of 15: Mets-Yankees, White Sox-Cubs, Angels-Dodgers, A's-Giants, Orioles-Nationals, Rangers-Astros, Reds-Indians Marlins-Devil Rays and Royals-Cardinals, and I'm stretching on the last two.
During this supposed traditional rivalry weekend we also get stinkers like D'backs-Padres, Blue Jays-Phillies, Padres-Mariners and, my favorite one of the weekend, Rockies-Royals. Thud.
There's also a two-fold fallout when it comes to scheduling.
- Chipper Jones was 100 percent right when he called interleague play unfair. It is unfair at it's very core. The Giants get stuck with A's who are perennial contenders. The Yankees have to face the Mets and both are near the top of their respective leagues each year. The Braves have to face the Red Sox, the best team in baseball, six times, because MLB has decided Boston is its natural rival (no doubt stemming from their Boston Brave days), even though it makes no geographical sense. Meanwhile the Marlins get six a year against the motherfreakin' Devil Rays, the Indians get the Reds and the Padres get the Mariners, and so on.
- The trickle down effect of interleague play has another unfair impact: the unbalanced schedule. In order to fit those interleague games in, other games have to come off somewhere, and so we get this foolish business where the Red Sox play the Yankees and the rest of their divisional opponents close to 20 times a season, thereby guaranteeing the Blue Jays, Orioles and Devil Rays never have a real shot at making the playoffs in any form.
And oh yeah, it's also ruining part of what made the All-Star Game and the World Series so special, although that's the more sentimental side of the argument. It's time for interleague to go. I doubt that will happen, as the attendance figures are still strong for games against the other league, but I've had quite enough of it personally.
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Your comments indicate you are less than 10 years old. The series you think are least desirable are those where the teams are unevenly matched, but such situations are transient. Wait 10 more years. By the time you reach 20, the situation will change. The drive across Kansas is kind of dull and seems even longer than it is, but Denver is actually about as close to Kansas City as any other major league city except St Louis. If some miracle should bring the Rockies and Royals into contention (and gas prices down) the matchup could be a big success.
The main flaw in your argument is what you don't talk about. Intra-league play has its own share of uninteresting matchups and it is a MUCH bigger share. The way to improve the situation is to copy the NFL again and reduce the schedule to one game per week. Think how exciting the Yankee games would be if Clemens could pitch them all.
5/19/07 12:17 PM
Don't mistake my disdain for the Rockies-Royals matchup as disdain for those two teams, in fact I like the chances of both of those teams to be contenders within the decade, and I particularly have followed the Royals closely this season.
And we haven't even addressed another part of the 10-years-down-the-road situation, which is, the novelty of interleague play may (will?) have completely worn off by then.