FanPost

A Valid Argument About the Imbalance of Interleague Baseball

Danny Knobler wrote this short, but impactful piece about Interleague play and the matchups highlighting the recently released 2012 schedule.

So with that in mind, this is just me piggybacking off Knobler's opinions, many of which I agree with. I've always thought Interleague play was not necessary. I mean, I could live with it, but I certainly could live without it, too. Most peoples complaints about the games are that if you are an AL fan, you don't get a DH, and if you're an NL fan, you have to structure a new lineup with this foreign position and work around that. There has been tons of arguments and venom with that, just ask the Red Sox fans who were pulling out their hair because they couldn't use a DH against us. I feel no allegiance to either side of the argument, and I actually like seeing teams have to be challenged like that.

Knobler raises a point I never thought about that puts me on the anti-interleague side. Baseball isn't being fair about this. As Knobler puts it:

It's fine that interleague play gives us games between natural rivals, which remain popular. But for people outside the two-team markets, interleague play was sold as a way to see every team from the other league, at least once every six years.

So that is a large part I am agreeing with, but what bugs me the most is the fact that they aren't actually cycling teams like they advertised. It isn't so much to do with the fan experience, but its to do with competitive balance. Teams are getting hit with harder interleague schedule then others simply because Major League Baseball feels those games would attract more attention and trying to maintain rivalries. If they properly cycled it like they should and teams had harder schedules then others, that's fine because it was done naturally, but the MLB is creating harder schedules because they want to see matchups they want, and come September, their meddling could cost a team the playoffs. Say the Braves lose their division by a game because they had a brutal interleague schedule where they lost a hard fought series to the Yankees, yet, if they played the Royals who they have never played, maybe things end up differently. Regarding the argument that it isn't following through on what it advertised, he's also correct. I enjoy us playing the Tigers again in 2012 yet again, but I'd like to see some fresh faces we haven't seen in awhile.

I get this rant is kind of strange, I just really hate the state of the Major League Baseball front office right now. I was already furious with them about their decision with the Mets hats, and this just makes them look stupid even more.

Not to mention, the Yankees have never played the Dodgers. I feel like the MLB would be salivating over the attention and potential money that can be gained from that series.

Rant over.

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