Interleague

I love interleague games. That the A L teams have to play half of the games by N L rules -- minus the DH, but
with more possibilities of pinch hitters doesnʻt bother me at all (and Iʻm a fan of an AL team).*

*Boston Red Sox a division leader until today when
a little-regarded N L team knocked them out of it. (The Yankees having lost to their N L foe yesterday, beat them today and took over 1st place.) I liked the idea of the Yankees playing a presumably tougher opponent while the Red Sox "only" had to play the Pirates! -- but that kind
of scheduling quirk evens itself out by the end of the season.

When I lived away from my team's market I loved interleague because it meant I got to see a few extra games every year. Since my team is the Red Sox, I am not, at this precise moment, madly in love with it. :D I know there are some reasonable arguments against it, but generally speaking, I mostly think it's ok. It leads to or brings up interesting stories, which is one of the things I love about baseball.

Interleague play sucks and is just another way Bud Selig has screwed up by chasing a quick buck. It was interesting for a moment, but only a moment. It might be cool for locals to see Cubs/White Sox or Dodgers/Real Angels of Orange County, but why do the rest of us have to be subjected to Yankees/Mets on Fox? And who wants to see Indians/Diamondbacks? I don't, and I'm a Tribe fan. Twice a decade, my team will visit DC, where I live, and I'll get to see them, whee. It just unbalances the schedule - some team will get an advantage by playing more/fewer games with/without the DH, or against inferior competition. I'd really rather see more meaningful games against division rivals (yes, I just volunteered to watch more of the Royals).

#4> I agree 100% with your take on interleague play.

My take is pretty much everything ming said as well. It's just another cheap gimmick that dilutes what should be a unique meeting between the leagues in the World Series.

Off topic

Sadly: +Dick Williams+
a pennant-winning manager in both leagues; one of only 7 such; and one of only 2 who won pennants with 3 different teams.

Obituary in New York Times of 07/08/11.

Williams managed the Boston Red Sox to their first pennant in
49 years. (1967 --era of the 10-Team League -- no playoffs).
Literature-wise (or is it -foolish?) he remains famous for his critique of Jim Bouton's 2nd book: "I DIDN'T read it, and I'm AGAINST it!"

Like many of you I am a Red Sox fan and because of the Ortiz problem (no DH in Natn'l League parks and he's really not much of a position player) not too wild about interleague play.

I know people feel passionately about this one way or the other but put me down as lukewarm.

"...people feel passionately about (Interleague play)" (8)

It seems they do, and Iʻm surprised; when it was starting, I would have expected any controversy to be very marginal --nothing like the DH Rule, which as you notice, Disle, (8), is related. But Iʻm not against Interleague, I even prefer it to the old scheduling. The opposition-alignments are skewed already by the fact that the teams no longer play
each other an equal number of times. This is because
theyʻre scheduled to play their own divisionʻs teams more often. (Is that borrowed from the NFL?) So the divisions have become of very unequal potency., and v ery imbalnced within themselves. The Red Soxʻs divlsion, for example, at the moment has ONE team with a losing record, and FOUR with a winning record.

It doesnʻt bother me (Red Sox fan) that Ortiz has to be a first baseman or out of the lineup in a few games (only the games where the NL team is the home team); the teams are still on an equal playing field, as the NL team couldnʻt have a DH to begin with.

But I am against the DH Rule. For one thing, the pitchers should have to bat, if theyʻre going to throw AT the batters whenver they feel like it. And it appears they are; the umpires donʻt like to call intentional "head-hunting".

My key reason for loathing interleague play, in addition to my previous agreement to post #4, is that it removes one of the most essential elements of league competition, the team vs. team element. In other words, when two teams play, it's not enough to me that both teams want to win the game. That's obvious. The question for me is, are the two teams competing against each other for anything greater. When two teams play within the same league play each other, even if they're not in the same division they are theoretically competing against each other at least for the wild card. I know this is not always the case; in many games, especially later in the season, there's really no such consideration. But interleague play removes this element entirely, all the time, for every game.

When the Dodgers play the Orioles or the Royals play the Marlins, or the Red Sox play the Braves, sure, they are all trying to win. But they are not competing against each other for anything at all. This renders the proceedings somewhat hollow for me.

By the same token, rocketjk, that brings the attention back to the game -- the game at hand. That is what is fundamental to playing, I think. Yes, we want to know who the best team is, but I can sit and enjoy an earnest contest between two lower rated college teams as much as I can enjoy a game between to teams of players who never make mistakes.

Robert

Well if that's the case, Robert, then every game's the same and you don't need interleague, anyway. I enjoy watching a ballgame for its own sake, too. But I don't get anywhere near the same enjoyment I do when I care who wins. At age 56, I'm much less interested in "what is fundamental to playing" then I am in what is fundamental to being a fan and enjoying watching ballgames and rooting for my favorite teams. So my antipathy to interleague play has much, much less to do with what the players might feel about it (assuming that's what you meant by "the fundamentals of playing") than it does what I feel about it.

One more point is that I don't think a major league season is about finding out who the best team is. It's just about enjoying the competition and rooting for the Giants and Yankees to win their respective pennants. Whether they're the "best" teams in their leagues is incidental, for baseball history is full of examples where the "best" team, at least on paper, does not win the pennant or the World Series.

Obviously, this is a "to each his own" opinion issue, only. For me, the more at stake in a game I'm watching, the more I enjoy it. Interleague games feel too much like exhibition games to me. Except for the World Series, of course!

I guess I can understand that about there being a stake in the game. Some people can't get excited about a competition without placing a bet on it, and apparently that's what makes some banal games interesting to their players (craps, for example). Once I got dog track betting out of my system in the sixties I got away from that, and possibly I got away from it in general. I cheer my local college team, but I enjoy the game no matter who wins. I used 'best' loosely, and I'll go along with your qualifications.

Robert

There's something very artificial about interleague. If you take the games individually, out of context, and watch them as pure competition, I'm sure you can get enjoyment out of (most of) them. But when you look at how they were introduced and how they are promoted and how the game is promoted in general under the reign of Selig, it's hard to view them as anything other than a marketing ploy.

Well, Iʻm for Interleague, but in spite of Selig, not because of him. I figure he doesnʻt get everything wrong, just most things.
In fact, Iʻd be more excited about the Red Sox beating the Cardinals or Phillies than about them beating the Orioles or Royals. Itʻs been mentioned in this thread that Dodgers vs. Orioles is a terrible matchup. True, but so is Dodgers vs. Cubs, or Orioles vs. Mariners, even though those stay within their own league.
True, the Yankees and the Texans donʻt care whatʻs happening to any National League teams, other than
the one theyʻre playing. But, within a league, the teams donʻt care what happens in games outside their own division. Unless they have a preference of whom to meet first in the playoffs, the Yankees, donʻt care what happens in the Central or West. The Texans donʻt care what happens in the East or Central. The interleague games have just as much competition as the pure AL or pure NL games, because the team of each league needs to win
it as much as they do within their own league.

#15> "But, within a league, the teams donʻt care what happens in games outside their own division."

Unless they're competing against each other for the wild card. The Giants recently cared quite a lot about what it meant when they played the Braves. And they still care what happens when the Braves play.

"The interleague games have just as much competition as the pure AL or pure NL games, because the team of each league needs to win it as much as they do within their own league."

I would just repeat that in pure AL or NL games, there is often a time when each team needs not just to win but for the other team to lose. In interleague games, there is never a time when one team in a game needs the other team to lose.

In addition, the interleague scheduling is often skewed in one team or another's favor. Such as, for example, when the Red Sox play an interleague schedule of strong NL teams and the Yankees play a schedule of weak NL teams. That sort of thing happens quite a bit.

Other than that, this is just an agree to disagree issue.