Inter-League Play

The second week of baseball's inter-league play is about to begin and I wanted to take some time to discuss the problems I have with it. Although I'm sure that many people enjoy the annual Mets/Yankees series and I understand, on some level, baseball's hope of driving up interest in the sports  through cross town rivalries where applicable,. However, by insisting that the Yanks and the Mets play every year, (or the Cubs and Whitesox, etc.) baseball is doing a disservice to both fans and teams.

I think the best approach to inter-league play would be to have it go on all year round - just schedule inter-league games as part of the regular schedule. Since there are an uneven number of teams in the NL vs the AL some teams play non inter-league games while everyone else is playing inter-league. Along with the change of when the games are scheduled, stop with some teams playing each other every year. Simplify the process by saying that in "year 1", the NL East plays the AL East, NL Central plays the AL Central and the NL West plays the AL West. In year 2 thigns rotate, NL E vs AL C,  NL C vs AL W, NL W vs AL E, year 3 the NL E plays NL W, NL C plays AL E and NL W plays AL C. That way, the "intercity" rivalries would only take place once every three years and that would give fans time to trash talk and build excitement and anticipation.

This configuration would also take away the inequity of certain teams always playing generally better teams (such as the Mets vs the Yanks).

Old School Baseball

There is a great article on ESPN.COM today regarding the "unwritten rules" of baseball and how those rules are enforced. (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=crasnick_jerry&page=starting9/100505). I'm not that old but I'm a fan of old school baseball. When guys stand and watch a home run they should get plunked the next time they bat. Guys like Barry Bonds totally annoyed me because he wore all this gear on his arms when he batted. That stuff should be outlawed. If guys don't want to get hurt at the plate then don't crowd the plate (Jeff Bagwell!) and don't admire your home runs (Bonds, among many others!) Of course in today's game guys will charge the mound which is BS too. If you get hit, and you think its intentional, chances are you or one of your teammates did something to provoke it. If so, deal with it like a man. And if not, your team will have a chance to retaliate and then things should end.