Enough With Interleague

So, the Diamondbacks (and their roving protest) are in town to play the Red Sox this week. With a team like Arizona in town I feel like now is a good time to declare that I have had enough of interleague baseball. Yes, at first it was fun and cool to see all these teams that hadn't played in Fenway Park in my lifetime, if ever. When Barry Bonds played his first game in Boston just a couple years ago it was a game to remember and when the Sox played at Wrigley it was a cool moment. But by now everyone has faced everyone else a couple of times and the novelty has worn off. There is very little buzz this time around as the Sox get ready to face the Giants and Padres. Even a World Series rematch with the Rockies doesn't feel like a big deal this year and if Manny Ramirez wasn't going to be making his Fenway Park return with the Dodgers this week my guess is there would be very little excitement about that series as well. I think baseball fans should get together and let MLB know that while it was fun for a while, we've reached our limit.

I think what killed interleague baseball for me is the lack of the Red Sox having a "natural" National League rival. At first MLB tried to convince us it was the Braves since they used to play here. The problem with that is no one in Boston misses the Braves and it's not like they left under particularly nasty circumstances, so they don't have the making of a rival. More like a guy who used to work with you, but now works in another branch. ("Remember Phil? Oh, I hadn't thought about Phil in ages!") Instead we're now getting the Phillies for two series and as near as I can tell the only reason the Sox and Philles would be rivals is that they are within 300 miles of each other. These fan bases just don't think about each other enough to dislike one other. The most realistic "natural" rival for Boston would be the Mets, but that slot is obviously occupied by the team they share a city with, as it should be. See, that's the problem that MLB is facing - where interleague is good, it's great. Mets/Yankees is almost always entertaining. But where it's bad it really stinks. Those games against the teams that the Sox will only face every couple of years not only lack any real intensity, but due to that lack of urgency they almost feel more like exhibition games than anything else.

I'm sure MLB isn't going to do away with interleague baseball if for nothing other than to keep the Yankees/Mets and Cubs/White Sox series going. But, here's hoping that they at least think about cutting back on the amount of series. (...and games overall. I want to be clear - I am not advocating replacing interleague with another 12 mind-numbing games against the Orioles and Royals.) What about three series a year, one against the "natural rivals" (rotating playing at each other's parks every year) and then pretty much whoever else fits in the schedule for the other two? If nothing else it would put more time between when teams visited each other's parks and might bring some buzz back to the idea. I mean, if a team like the Cardinals only came to Boston twice a decade that would certainly peak some interest. (It should be noted that no amount of time between visits from a team like the Diamondbacks would generate any buzz in this city. Sorry Arizona, nothing personal.) I'm sure the seamheads out there will claim that unless every team from one division plays every team from the same division then there will not be a competitive balance. Well, I have news for those people - there is no competitive balance in baseball. Not as long as teams like the Mets, Yankee, Angels, Sox and Cardinals can simply out-spend everyone to keep their rosters intact. At least this way some games in mid-June would go back to feeling like they matter, not like baseball decided to go back to Spring Training for a couple weeks, which is what it feels like now.