Any baseball fans out there?

This weekend is the kickoff for interleague play in Major League Baseball. Being a baseball purist (and originally from NYC), it makes me cringe to see the Yankees playing the Mets in the regular season. I was just wondering what some of the opinions were out there...

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You want to go one on one with The Great One?

I don't like it either. I was also against the freaking Brewers joining the NL! (I'm bigoted against the the junior circuit)

I suppose that interleague play generates money though and if they are going to keep handing out contracts like the one they gave to Kevin Brown, they need to make as much money as possible.

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Contestant #3

I'm not sure I like it, but the other major sports do it; basketball, football, hockey. Baseball has made other changes over time--night games, DH, astroturf, domes.

Aluminum bats are probably next. I would like foul balls to count as strike three to speed things up. It's annoying watching a batter foul off 3 or more balls hanging in there.

This is the "slippery slope" opponents of the disignated hitter were talking about! I hate it! About the time the AL adopted the DH, peanuts started being sold in plastic instead of paper bags. Then you have all these expansion teams from Florida and Arizona. Like having every MLB team in the world in those two states for two solid months wasn't enough. Then they started screwing with the devisions and the playoffs. It seems like half the teams make it to the playoffs now and they last the best part of a month. What ever happened to pennant races? Now I hear someone wants to get rid of the NL and AL completely and create Eastern, Central, and Western Leagues!

I enjoyed baseball a lot more 10 or 15 years ago when the only offencive thing about the game was that stupid DH rule.

The day I hear the crack of an aluminum bat in a ML ballpark is the day I become a soccor fan!!!!

It's interesting that everyone ignores the main practical problems with interleague play (more, thus shorter series-unbalanced schedules-playing the teams in you division fewer times) and focusing only on arguments that can be lumped into the category of "Tradition". THere is nothing wrong with tradition, but if you can't come up worth a better argument, then your arguments arn't worth much. Slavery is a tradition that dates back at least until the Babylonian times. SHould we be pining for slavery then, after all it's traditional!!

Don't worry to much about radical realignment of divisions or aluminum bats in the foreseable future, there are to many arguments against them. In fact MLB would like to see colleges start using wooden bats again, but the colleges aren't real keen on the idea.

About the DH, I remember some years back someone came up with an example of how foolish the anti-DHer's argument about the lack of strategy in the AL because of the DH rule. Once Doug Drabek came up four times in a game with a runner on first and less than two outs, all four times he sacrificed. And the argument against the DH based on pitcher hitting even worse isn't true either. Pitchers have always hit bad, the stats back that up. In fact the DH rule was originally proposed in the 1930's . Most of the anti-DH arguments are invalid or "tradition".

It seems to me that most of the respondends here miss the good old days and want to have the New York Yankees play the Brooklyn Dodgers or New York Giants every year in the World Series.

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Jim Petty
A Snappy message should appear here

Put me down in favor of interleague play. I like it. I enjoy watching my team play against teams that they normally hadn't played against before. It encourages rivalries (sp?) between teams from the same city (like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles). Best of all, you can see how your team stacks up against the whole of MLB instead of just the teams in the league (or division).

I don't like the DH. I think the pitcher is a member of the team and should be required to bat just like everyone else.

Lastly, I heard a rumor about re-aligning the teams based on the market size. I don't like this either. If a small market team can't measure up to a large market team, then it doesn't belong in the major leagues.

That's my rant and I'm sticking to it.

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"The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life." -George Carlin

Personally, I like interleague play. I just wish it was more spread around, e.g., not limited to the analagous division in the other league. Why should a fan from Pittsburgh never get to see Ken Griffey hit when one from Arizona can; why should a fan in Kansas City never get to see Greg Maddux pitch when one from Boston can?

Then again, I also like the DH.

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Chaim Mattis Keller
ckeller@schicktech.com

"Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks."
-- Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective

Personally, I love baseball. In all its guises. The more the merrier, esp. on tv.
It keeps you guys off the streets, and outta my way.
Peace,
mangeorge

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Work like you don't need the money.....
Love like you've never been hurt.....
Dance like nobody's watching! Source???