It's back.
Interleague play.
It's like the tie your in-laws give you for Christmas. You put it in a box in the back of the dresser drawer, hiding it from public sight. But each year when the family gets together you bring it out, wear it for a day and smile.
MLB roundup
Tuesday's action
More on MLB:
Photo gallery:
Greatest Yankee moments:
The All-Star Game (July 15, FOX) will be the last one played at Yankee Stadium. As we say goodbye to the "House,"
Dayn Perry busts out
his list of the best moments from Yankee lore.
POLL: Vote for your favorite!
It's not going away.
Like the DH in the early '70s, interleague play was created in 1997 to try and rekindle interest in baseball. The interest has been rekindled but the quick fix has become a staple for one weekend in May and a two-week stretch in mid-June, where baseball is disrupted so that the TV networks and a handful of teams can have their way at the expense of the rest of the game.
Here are 10 things to ponder with interleague play set to unfold on Friday:
If interleague play is such a good deal, why not base the home-field advantage for the World Series on which league wins the most games in interleague play instead of trying to create a false value to the All-Star Game? It would provide a broader basis for awarding the home-field advantage and would use meaningful games to determine a meaningful edge. If interleague play is designed to let fans from one league get a chance to watch the teams from the other league, then go all the way. Play the games in NL parks under AL rules (like using the DH) and the games in AL parks under NL rules (like pitchers hitting). That way the fans from each league would get a better feel for how the game is run in the other league. OK, attendance spikes each year during interleague play, reaching a record average 34,905 per game last year, and having averaged 33,071 for each of the 2,695 games played since the advent of interleague play. But really, the attendance boost is really attributable to just a handful of series each year. There are the local rivalries in New York, the Bay Area, Chicago, Southern California and Texas, and then wherever the Yankees, Cubs and Red Sox play on the road. But it's not like the Yankees, Cubs or Red Sox benefit at home. They sell out for any game, interleague or otherwise. Fans can't be forced to like the "rivalries'' any more than kids can be forced to like medicine. Kansas City may salivate at the idea of having the Cardinals visit each year, but St. Louis has made it clear it has no interest in bringing the Royals to Busch Stadium annually. And who came up with the idea that San Diego and Seattle are natural rivals? Has anybody noticed yet that regardless of who's playing, the fans don't show up at the parks in Florida? Despite blocking out two weekends for the series last year, Tampa Bay-Florida resulted in an average attendance of 17,233 for the six-game Sunshine State showdown. Would everybody who's looking forward to any of the following weekend series please raise your hand: Toronto at Philadelphia, Oakland at Atlanta, Kansas City at Florida, Tampa Bay at St. Louis, Minnesota at Colorado, Detroit at Arizona and the White Sox at San Francisco? Can't wait to see the fans line up for Texas' return to Washington next month. Heck, the folks in Washington didn't want to see the franchise when it played in Washington. You don't think Houston owner Drayton McLane has friends in high places? The Astros have home series with both Boston and the Yankees. The Cubs, Cardinals and Brewers, also in the NL Central, don't host either one. The Cubs, in fact, don't have to play either of the AL East giants, filling out their interleague card with the home-and-away series against the White Sox, a Wrigley Field visit from Baltimore, and trips to Tampa Bay and Toronto. The AL has had the upper hand. Eight of the top nine interleague records belong to AL teams. The Marlins are the exception, at 105-81. The AL has won the season series in seven of 11 years, including each of the last four. But remember, interleague play may be in only its 12th year of existence, but this was not a new idea that suddenly sprung up in the 1990s. Bill Veeck Sr., actually first proposed interleague play back in 1933, and there were several efforts after that they never mustered enough support.
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