Let's Talk About Inter-League Play

melvin289

You know in football, when the Superbowl rolls around you usually have 2 teams playing that have already played each other in the regular season. Boring. Baseball is trying to do the same thing with the inter-league play. You have two leagues that play using different rules, a DH in one league and not in the other. For the life of me I don't know why a pitcher is anymore special or sacred than a regular position player. When I was a kid the World Series rolled around and all you could do was speculate as to how the two teams would match up. They might have played each other in spring training but that was so long ago, and in Florida, that it didn't count. That's what set baseball above the other sports.

In the words of Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriweather from In Living Color, "Hate it."

Ron

pitboss

Baseball needs to either have the DH in both leagues or neither one. Interleague play does not work this way at all. AL pitchers are not used to batting and NL teams do not have a capable DH. It is stupid this way.

stevek

I don't like the DH, but I happen to like interleague play a lot.

I don't see anything changing regarding the DH or interleague play anytime soon.

I don't disagree that the two leagues should have the same rules. The AL should have never began the DH without having the NL do it as well...so the junior circuit should be blamed completely and totally for the problem.

Tabe

<< <i>You know in football, when the Superbowl rolls around you usually have 2 teams playing that have already played each other in the regular season.
Ron >>


I don't know that 6 times in the last 22 years counts as "usually".

Tabe

melvin289

<< <i>

<< <i>You know in football, when the Superbowl rolls around you usually have 2 teams playing that have already played each other in the regular season.
Ron >>


I don't know that 6 times in the last 22 years counts as "usually".

Tabe >>



Tabe I was just making a guess. I don't usually watch the Superbowl. The last one I watched was when Carolina played several years ago and only because I live 20 miles from their stadium. Never been to a game though.

Ron

jdip9

The thing about interleague play that nobody has been able to explain to me yet, is that since it is "so popular" (Bud's words), as evidenced by increased attendance for these games, why is it limited to 6 series per year? Why not move an NL team to the AL, and play everybody from the other league once per season for a 3-game series (alternating the home team every season)? That way, the schedule is perfectly balanced for all teams. That way the Mets don't have to play the Yankees every year while the Nationals play the Orioles every year, giving the Nationals a huge advantage.

The interleague detractors that want to limit it to 4 series per year have bass-ackwards. That only increases the unfairness, especially if the "natural rivals" (a joke in itself) are kept intact.

There is nothing fair about the way interleague is set up. Nothing. It's infuriating.

JoeBanzai

Inter league play does allow you to see players in person you might never get a chance to see. I liked Tony Gwynn and because I live in an AL city he was one of the great NL players I missed out on. Other than that it doesn't have much appeal to me.
Joe

melvin289

Was watching the Phils and the Red Sox on ESPN tonight before coming to work The Sox pitcher, Lackey, hit a ball off the wall to score a man on base and tied the game until he gave up a homerun later in the game. Now this is a pitcher that only gets to bat if they are involved in interleague play. I would 10,000 times rather have seen this than some old "has been" that should have long since retired from the game. This is the way the game was intended to be played.

Ron

Edited for spelling

jdip9

and how do you feel the other 9 times he comes up and strikes out?

melvin289

<< <i>and how do you feel the other 9 times he comes up and strikes out? >>



This is not a short or smart a$$ answer. I am not an American League fan and don't usually watch AL games. I was just killing time the other night before I had to leave for work. I just thought it was pretty neat that the pitcher got a hit like that. To me more exciting than a DH. If you are old enough to remember the Falstall Baseball Game of the Week back in the early 60's, every time a pitcher got a hit or a home run Dizzy Dean would have a field day with his co-announcer PeeWee Reese.

Ron

halfcentman

<< <i>Baseball needs to either have the DH in both leagues or neither one. Interleague play does not work this way at all. AL pitchers are not used to batting and NL teams do not have a capable DH. It is stupid this way. >>



My 13-year-old daughter, an avid sports fan, think that it is the most ridiculous thing in the world that a professional sport is played by two different sets of rules. She equates it with the NFC and the AFC having two sets of rules.

Personally, watching anemic pitchers hitting and risking injury on the basepaths is not my thing. Why don't you ask Chien Ming Wang how that worked for him in Houston?

72skywalker

I personally like interleague play. It is fun to watch 2 teams that don't usually see each other play against each other. Plus if you are trying to see all the major league ballparks and you are a Yankees fan for example, it is better to watch the Yankees play the Brewers if you wanted to fly out to see a game than say the Brewers and San Diego.

i still laugh that the AL fans say the DH rule in interleague play is unfair because their pitcher has to hit and the NL fans say it is unfair because they have to try and find a DH. It only comes into play a few times a year so I could care less if both leagues have their own set of ruels.

halfcentman

I do not like the quantity of interleague games.

I think that natural rivalries work better such as Mets/Yankees, Cubs/White Sox, etc. home-and-home. It will work even better with the realignment.

Watching the Yankees play the Brewers is of zero interest to me.

Garabaldi

If the NL likes Interleague play and the Wild Card, they should try the DH. It would improve the games and not be so boring.

melvin289

Again in defense of the pitcher hitting. In tonights Brave's game with the bases loaded Derek Lowe, the pitcher, came to bat and hit a ball down the left field line for a bases clearing double. The braves won 5 to 3.

The Braves were playing the Orioles over the weekend and the pitcher for Baltimore hit a solo home run. He was something like 5 for 7 while batting in interleague with a .714 batting average.

Ron

melvin289

Thank heaven Inter-League play is over for another year. The Senior Circuit can play the game the way it was intended to be played again.

Ron