I hate it.
Sure, it’s fun to watch the Yankees open a can of whup-ass on the Mets, but overall I feel it takes away the fun of the regular season.
There are now less games between intra-league rivals, and each team doesn’t play the same schedule as said rivals. The Yankees always have to play the Mets and Braves, two of the best teams in the NL. The Baltimore Orioles may not play those two teams in the same season, giving them a slight advantage.
Plus, it’s taking away from the spectacle of the All-Star Game and the World Series.
Don’t even get me STARTED on the wild card.
I hate it, as well. Like you said, it takes away from of the drama of the World Series. It’s just like having spring break halfway through the season.
It blows.
I tried to give it a chance, but it’s no use. For great, well-articulated opinions on this, the playoff structure, the DH and other fist-fight-inducing topics, check out Bob Costa’s baseball book (his latest).
Chalk up another nay vote. I love baseball, despite the fact that there seems to be a concerted effort to drive the more traditional fans away. I hear they are going to try to revert back to an unbalanced schedule while still preserving interleague play. That is a step back in the right direction, but it is just a step.
I hate interleague play. I’m not too big on the wild card, either, but I can see having one with the current 3-division format. It’s hard to keep adding teams without expanding the playoffs.
Once they end up with 4 divisions (and team ERAs will be averaging 7.00), I would like to see them ditch the wildcard. The 4 playoff teams would be the division winners only (playing an unbalanced schedule favoring intra-division matchups). No prizes for second best.
Good idea.
Unlike football, division records don’t amount to squat when it comes to determining standings, so why not–other than “because that’s the way it’s always been.” 162 games is enough to play every team 5 or 6 times.
A good answer for “why not” interleage play: Let’s say three teams (Cubs, Astros, Brewers) are battling near the top of the division (I know, I know…). Winner goes to playoffs; other two go home. Which makes the better case for deserving the winning spot, lots of battles between the Cubs, Astros, and Brewers; or Cubs playing Royals, Brewers playing Angels, and Astros playing Devil Rays?
Unless you are at the top, any team chasing wants as many opportunities to play division rivals as possible. A team has the potential to pick up a lot more ground this way rather than playing outside the league. Part of the short-sightedness of MLB, inc., is that they don’t see how much better this is as far as excitement and drama goes.
Divemaster - Exactly! If memory serves, when I was rooting for the Yankees in the 70’s, they would have FOUR series every season with the Red Sox. The pennant race in 1978 was incredible! How could the Yankees have made up a 16 game deficit if they didn’t play the Red Sox so many times? Think I wanted to see them waste games playing National League teams?
I love it, and I think it should be expanded. I love seeing Dodger/Angel games that actually count. I loved seeing Juan Gone and the Rangers at Dodger Stadium. I would love to see a Dodger/Yankee match-up. And an Angels/Braves game.
I’ve heard it said that it takes away from the World Series. But to me this is nonsense. The superbowl and NBA finals are still exciting, even though these teams may have met in the regular season.
I’ve heard it said that the wild card is a bad thing. I do not agree. Often, the division races are over fairly early (Braves/Yankees/Indians). With a wild card, teams still have something to fight for. And without it, the second place team in a tough division, who may be a lot better than the winner of a weak division, would have no chance to prove it.
So, I think there should be more interleague play, so I can see more of the great ones play. But possibly fewer teams.
spooj,
I agree that it’s fun to watch certain same-city matchups during the season (Mets-Yanks, Angels-Dodgers). However, I find myself checking the schedule during a series with the Expos or the Marlins, wondering when the next “real” game will be.
I have to disagree on the wild card. I understand that it keeps more teams in the running for the playoffs, which translates to bigger crowds, better ratings, and more money. But I’ve always liked the fact that in baseball, you have to be THE BEST to compete in the post-season. There was nothing worse than seeing the wild-card Marlins win the World Series in 1997. What did that prove? You could match up ANY two teams for a best of seven series, and sometimes, the lesser team will win. The World Series should be a showcase for the best teams, a reward for a hard-fought season.
Another bad feature of the wild card is that it could put a team in a position where losing a game could benefit them. One year, after they had already clinched first place, the Yankees would have probably assured themselves of facing a weaker opponent in the first round of playoffs if they lost a series near the end of the season. Whether a team would consciously try to do that or not, it erodes the “must win” mentality.
I tend to favor interleague play, but would prefer to see the interleague divisional matchups rotate on a yearly basis: ie, AL West plays NL West one year, NL Central the next, etc.
I particularly wanted to respond to this point, however:
This could be addressed by matching the team with the best record, against the team with the worst record in the first round of the playoffs (for each league). I think that most fans would agree that the team that loses the most games of the playoff teams is the “easier” seed, regardless of whether or not that team one a division or “just” the wild card.
This would do away with the possible “throw a game” mentality that soup so rightly points out.
Forget all that! I’d rather see it the way it was up to 1969. Or if that’s too drastic, at least back to the old 2-leagues-of-2-divisions-each system. And yes, why not dump some of the less competitive teams, even though the situation in Montreal saddens me, but it is getting silly. And get rid of the DH while you’re at it. Let baseball be the special game it is, and not another super-bowl-hype media product. It will never be able to be like that anyway, and that will be its undoing.
I have to disagree. That Marlins/Indians series was a GREAT series. And IMHO, the best team is the one who plays best when the pressure is on (i.e. playoffs).
That said, I think the Expos, Marlins, D-rays, Brewers, and any other team that can’t draw fans in their own city to the park should fold. Christ, Tony Gwynn was hit no 3000 in Montreal in front of only 8000 people. This is not a baseball town.
Inter-league rocks!
It’s good for the fans to see different teams come to town to play.
I can’t imagine what the NFL would be like not playing any inter conference games.
It adds a bit of variety.
Go Mets!
I agree with your last comment :D, but disagree with the rest. I would rather see more games against the Braves and, yes, the Expos than against Tampa Bay(!) Well it does add variety, but takes away from the intensity.
I think one factor in the debate over interleague play is the desires of the casual fan vs. the hardcore fan. I, being a rabid Yankee fan, want to see more games with the teams that will have the greatest impact on the pennant race. A more casual fan, who just enjoys watching the baseball game that happens to be on that day, would probably rather see a cool match-up for that one game.
I’m more interested in the “marathon” of the baseball season: team slumps, hot streaks, anticipation of big series, gathering momentum for a push to first place.
BTW:A great book that captures the feeling of an exciting pennant race is “Summer of '49” by David Halberstam.
I, for one, do not give a rat’s ass about the Phillies and Yankees or Marlins and Blue Jays playing. I would rather see the Braves play more games with their rivals than with AL teams.
For some things, it’s interesting to have interleague. The first year was cool because it was a new-fangled thing, but now it just gets in the way of scheduling.
Don’t like it, simply because it makes no sense to have the separate leagues if they’re just going to play one another anyway.
Now that I think of it, it could just be the start of a plan by the owners to institute a massive, purely-geographical realignment, a la Basketball and Hockey.
I am pretty much against it. I think it does create very interesting match-ups in New York and Chicago. But apart from these subway series I am not so much opposed t some sort of asethetic nature of baseball, rather I think that it is detrimental more to the way it unbalances the schedules and that certain teams play easier schedules because of it. It is just unfair, IMO.
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Pah. You call “interleague play” something to get all in a tizzy about?! You think something that petty and insignificant is going to have a serious “good” or “bad” impact on baseball?
How about allowing aluminum bats? How about shortening the game to 7 innings? How about allowing players who have been substituted out during the game to be substituted back in later, like they do in football? How about not requiring players to tag the base before advancing when the ball is caught? How about eliminating fielders’ gloves (they didn’t have 'em before the 1880s anyway)? How about going back to the original rule that it takes NINE balls, rather than four, before you get to take a base on balls? How about allowing the pitcher to scuff up and spit on the ball, like they did before the 1920s?
Think about those proposals. They’ve all been made at some time in the past. Does interleague play sound like it’s anywhere NEAR as profound a change as those?
tracer,
Well yes, actually it does sound like it. It’s pretty significant that for close to 100 years every team in a league would play the same teams during a season, and now they don’t. These days, the arguement can be made that some teams have a tougher schedule than others, creating an unfair disadvantage.
As far as your other proposals, I’ve heard a few of them bantered about by announcers during games, but I haven’t seen any of them seriously considered by baseball:
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Aluminum bats. I suppose this is a good idea cost-wise (less broken bats). But they would have to design a bat that has the same “spring” as a wooden bat. I’d hate to be the pitcher standing 60 feet away from a major league hitter with an aluminum bat. Heck, we have a SOFTBALL league in my town that was considering banning them, because too many line drives were hitting the pitchers.
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Shortening the game to 7 innings: While one of the goals these days is to make the games move along quicker, this isn’t the way to do it. One of the nice things about baseball is that you can compare the stats of players today with players from any other years, because the rules and conditions are essentially the same. 7 inning games would seriously skew that.
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Alowing players back in a game: Naah. What fun is that? If you take a player out, he’s out. Adds another level of strategy to the game.
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Not requiring runners to tag the base before advancing: Hmm. It might be exciting to watch a runner advance while an outfielder is waiting to catch a high fly ball. There would certainly be more plays at home plate. But, it might make the games a little TOO offense oriented. Baseball currently has a pretty good balance in that regard.
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Eliminating fielder’s gloves: Sure. Why don’t we blindfold them too?
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Nine balls for a walk: I think the games are long enough now. How about the umpires call the regulation strike zone instead?
7.Spitballs: Again, this is an unfair advantage. Both teams should be playing under the same conditions, which includes using the same, unaltered, regulation baseball.
Whew! Play ball!