Has interleague play lost its luster?
By: MICHAEL KLITZING - Staff Writer | ∞
By: MARC FIGUEROA - Staff Writer
Yes:
The chowder heads and friar faithful are out in full force this weekend as the electricity coming out of Petco Park has many people touting the Padres-Red Sox series as a potential World Series preview.
While that thought surely will be debated for weeks and, possibly, months to come, this weekend series no doubt has baseball progressives bellowing in unison, "See, I told you so."
While interleague play has brought some intriguing matchups to the table since its inception in 1997, by no means has it taken America's pastime to another level. In some respects, it's actually ruining the game.
And for that reason, it's time to get rid of it.
Commissioner Bud Selig points to beefy attendance records for his social proof that pitting the American League versus the National League works. The fans are buying into it, he says.
For some, maybe.
But I wonder what Selig's reaction was when he saw that only 19,000 people showed up at Chase Field the other night to watch the Diamondbacks take on Tampa Bay? Or the 22,000 fans who had nothing better to do on a Tuesday than watch the Nationals get trounced by Detroit at RFK Stadium.
That's the thing about interleague play. It only works some of the time. It sort of worked the first five years when each division played the same division from the other league. That's what makes Yankees-Mets and Dodgers-Angels work so well. But now the games are played featuring various divisions, which brings us matchups like Orioles-Padres.
This is where baseball has erred. Wouldn't these games be better spent facing a division foe rather than a team that comes around once every several years? Division games have much more immediate impact in the standings anyway.
Orioles-Padres? What's the point?
On Tuesday night we learned all we ever wanted to about Baltimore slow-poke pitcher Steve Trachsel (I was asleep by the third inning, but that's another story) and the Orioles' fall from grace. It was interesting, yes, but it falls in the same category as useless trivia. Who cares?
And what about the World Series? Isn't the whole mystique of the season's final matchup that it features teams that would never face each other except in the Series? That's what made the World Series so great. It seems watered down now.
If the Padres and Red Sox do make it to October, all we're going to be talking about is what occurred this weekend. In essence, we'll be looking to the past to try to predict the future. That's no fun.
And neither is interleague baseball.
Contact staff writer Marc Figueroa at marcfig@aol.com. To comment, go to sports.nctimes.com.
No:
One of my favorite sneering critiques of interleague play always surfaces right about this time of year.
Inevitably, some broadcaster this weekend will glance up at the out-of-town scoreboard, see that the Rockies are playing the Blue Jays and sarcastically call it an "exciting geographic rivalry."
So droll.
Or maybe the Orioles-Diamondbacks epic will be the one to draw the ire of all the snarky purists.
And it's hard to argue their point. Those two matchups are only slightly more watchable than Huell Howser's visit to the world's largest wind chime in Lakeside.
But to say interleague play is a dying experiment because it creates some forgettable pairings is just plain curious. The wrong-headed assumption there is that intraleague matchups are always captivating affairs.
What's the good news about National League sad-sacks Pittsburgh and Washington playing six times this season? I guess that it's one fewer than the number of times Kansas City and Tampa Bay will lock horns in thrilling American League action.
Rumor has it, George Mitchell will force Jason Giambi to watch tapes of those games until he names names.
But it seems Marc can't get enough. Guess that's what you'd expect from a guy who bought picture-in-picture so he could track the players on his Nationwide Tour rotisserie team.
In reality, with baseball's schedule already skewed in favor of intradivision games, interleague play's bizarre matchups of awful teams are merely costing us more conventional matchups of awful teams. Sure, the Orioles trip here didn't get any Padres fans foaming at the mouth, but if it comes at the expense of another visit from the Florida Marlins, I can't see how this is a problem.
Interleague play is actually set up rather well from the standpoint of the fans.
In addition to the natural rivalries that occur every year, the much-maligned divisional rotation is just as beneficial. A couple times a decade, every National League fan will get to see the Yankees and Red Sox come to town, while American League towns get their dose of the Dodgers and Cubs.
So go ahead, Marc, ask the 130,000-plus fans that went out to watch the Red Sox at Petco this weekend how bored they are with interleague play. Ask if they feel cheated about losing that extra series with the Houston Astros.
If you can pull yourself away from the Nationwide Tour telecast, that is.
Contact staff writer Michael Klitzing at mrklitzing@gmail.com.
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Rob wrote on Jun 25, 2007 8:49 AM:Seriously, Marc...."Orioles, Padres, what's the point?"...that's your criteria for doing away w/ interleague play? Since when are Super Bowls ruined because the teams met earlier in the season? New week, new month, things change. New England lost to the Rams in Week 10 in 2001. It didn't tarnish the build up to Super Bowl 36 or, in any way, make the game less exciting. BTW, the Nationals are a horrible team. As a D.C. resident, bottom line is the Nats won't draw big crowds unless it's the Mets, Yankees or Red Sox...and that likely won't change if its the Devil Rays or one of those National League juggernauts like the Pirates.
dude wrote on Jun 28, 2007 2:55 PM:I was at a padres orioles game (thanks Boomer!), and we were foaming at the mouth. Or maybe i had too many beers. Seriously though, my whole problem with interleague play is not the ridiculously artificial geographical rivalries, its the unbalanced playing schedule. If they were just to juggle a couple teams around everything would be fine.
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