# Baseball interleague play **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 25, 1999, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-interleague-play/16867 "1999-10-25T18:09:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 1999, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-interleague-play/16867/1 "1999-10-26T05:32:00Z")
Why not? First, I’m not a baseball fan, so I can look at this with a more disinterested viewpoint. The only arguments against it that I’ve heard are a) it’s always been this way, and b) the DH rule. Is there more to it than this? ---
**Author:** ![Satan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 1999, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-interleague-play/16867/2 "1999-10-25T18:09:00Z")
I hate it. It was always cool that you could wonder which league was better, why do we have to remove that? Oh yeah. Because baseball had to rely on gimmicks after it fucked us out of the '94 World Series match-up of Montreal and the Yanks to get fans back. FTR, I don’t like the DH either. Nor do I like artificial turf and World Series games that end after midnight. * * * Yer pal, Satan ---
**Author:** ![SoxFan59](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@SoxFan59](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SoxFan59)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 1999, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-interleague-play/16867/3 "1999-10-25T19:20:00Z")
I don’t approve of interleague play either. Its bad enough that with expansion you barely get to play the rival teams within your own division, let alone league, then we have interleague play. While the concept of the White Sox vs. Cubs is interesting locally here in Chicago, the rest of America yawns. Then, we have games with teams we traditionally could care less about. Sox vs Reds? Sox vs Pirates? Its like playing Tampa Bay. Forget it! * * * SoxFan59 “Its fiction, but all the facts are true!” ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 1999, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-interleague-play/16867/4 "1999-10-25T20:55:00Z")
I’m not too crazy about Interleague play, either. If the leagues are going to play each other regularly, why maintain the different leagues at all? Either return baseball to the way it was, or go the way of basketball and hockey - a truly geographically-based division of teams. The way football has it (and, to that small degree, baseball) is dumb. * * * Chaim Mattis Keller [ckeller@schicktech.com](mailto: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 ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 1999, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-interleague-play/16867/5 "1999-10-25T21:02:00Z")
An ABOMINATION! (the only reason for HAVING an American League in the first place is so the Dodgers have someone to play against in the World Series) Better go back and read the thread, now. * * * (holding on to jerking knee, and limping over to topic) ---
**Author:** ![Satan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 1999, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-interleague-play/16867/6 "1999-10-25T21:15:00Z")
kaylasdad99: Wow. A Dodger fan… Been a rough decade, hasn’t it… ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 1999, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-interleague-play/16867/7 "1999-10-25T21:28:00Z")
I agree with everything in Satan’s first post. I hate interleague play and the different gimmicks that MLB has foisted upon us in an effort to ‘modernize’ the game. IMO, the main problem with interleague play is that it reduces the number of games against teams in your own division. If you are in third place, the last thing you want to do is be playing games outside your league. You want to face your division foes as much as possible in order to gain ground as fast as possible. In addition, the more games between #1 and #2, the better chance you at #3 have to gain ground. And if those divisional games send you to the bottom of the standings; well, that is why they play 162 games. If you end up at the bottom against your rivals, you don’t deserve to go to the playoffs (phooey on the wild card, too.). A team should not be allowed to make up ground by playing weak, out-of-league games. First was ‘balanced’ schedules (facing more teams outside your division but within your league), and now interleague play. I don’t think baseball is going in the right direction. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 1999, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-interleague-play/16867/8 "1999-10-25T22:22:00Z")
Satan: Yeah, I guess you could say so, although since the O’Malley’s sold my birthright for a mess of pottage (and a coupla hundrd million smackers), Ive grown disgusted with the whole sorry mess. Actually, the whole thing boils down to Scripture. See, I happen to KNOW that one of the Dead Sea Scrolls is being suppressed. It’s the one that includes the following verses: > [@](#): > > And the **LORD** cast His gaze upon the field, and saw the writing upon the wall, and LO! the writing on the wall read as follows: > > > [@](#): > > > > DODGERS 000 010 030 > > PHILLIES 101 000 300 > > And the **LORD** did turn his attention to the recording angel and did say: This game doesn’t count, okay? * * * Well, if it’s not in there somewhere, it SHOULD be. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 1999, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-interleague-play/16867/9 "1999-10-25T22:24:00Z")
Gonna have to work on nested quotes. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 1999, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-interleague-play/16867/10 "1999-10-26T03:30:00Z")
Interleague play allows the mets to play the yanks…dodgers to play the angels…cubs to play the white sox…giants to play the athletics… Is that not a good thing? * * * If you can’t convince them, confuse them. Harry S. Truman ---
**Author:** ![Satan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 1999, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-interleague-play/16867/11 "1999-10-26T09:38:00Z")
Banks: No, it’s not. It’s gimmicky, and the way it is set up, it includes some unnatural rivalries (Yankess vs. Montreal is a real thriller) while ignoring some potential match-ups like Yanks vs. Dodgers. It further dilutes the importance of the regular season. How can you dilute 162-game seasons? Simple… Have a bunch of those games against people tyou are NOT FIGHTING IT OUT for a playoff position with. Then, bring in a third round of playoffs, which means that a slump at a bad time can make a 110-win season a failure because of one bad start here, a slump there. ---
**Author:** ![Mullinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@Mullinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mullinator)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 1999, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-interleague-play/16867/12 "1999-10-26T12:46:00Z")
Interleague play does very little to raise my interest. It’s kind of like one of those jokes where you laguh out loud the first time you hear it and then it get’s progressively less funny each time you think about it. While I enjoy seeing Cubs/White Sox games, it is just as pointless for me to see a Cubs versus Royals or Twins matchup. Save it for the grapefruit and cactus leagues and let the World Series and All-Star game settle the interleague battle. Oh yeah, ditch the DH and artificial turf too. * * * All generalizations suck. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 1999, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-interleague-play/16867/13 "1999-10-27T01:19:00Z")
Kaylasdad: I sorta became a Dodger fan after I moved out of L.A… And after I saw that Ken Burns _Baseball_ miniseries on PBS. Too bad they lost Nomo and Piazza, eh?