Interleague Play

Apropos of yesterday's blog, about the possibility--really at this point a good probability--of instant replay being used in MLB, this weekend's round of interleague play got me thinking about how the game's already been tweaked. And how the purists protested, to no avail, when interleague was first introduced in 1997, but how it's now become an unqualified success.

We've all become used to the wrinkle in the schedule that pits AL teams against NL teams, once a matchup that we'd only see in the World Series. This is why people protested it when the idea was first floated, as if the only reason that people watch the Series is because of the novelty of the interleague matchup. Basketball and football have blurred the boundaries between their leagues and divisions with no ill effects to their ratings or competitiveness. NFL games will be hawked as "previews" or "rematches" of the Super Bowl, and nobody seems to care that this year's NBA Finals occurs between two teams that have already met twice before in the regular season.

If anything, prior knowledge and experience between the two teams should heigten the excitement, not diminish it. Familiarity breeds contempt, along with resentments, grudges, and all those gnarly emotions that bring tension to a series. Coaches can create a better game plan if they've seen and played the other team before--that doesn't mean they're poorer coaches (because they can't create a strategy from nothing) but better, since they can adjust to what they've already seen.

One of the cool features of interleague play is seeing AL players play NL ball, and vice versa, although the prospect of NL teams adding one more hitter to the lineup via the DH is more appealing to me than seeing a career AL pitcher like Cliff Lee or Chien-Ming Wang trying vainly to make contact. A twist to interleague play that has been offered by plenty of commentators is the switcheroo on this. Instead of teams adopting the league rules of the home stadiums, make it the reverse, so that Pittsburgh fans can see the DH or Detroit fans the double-switch.

The regional matchups that baseball has tried to concentrate its interleague games around can create some interesting rivalries, as when the Yanks meet the Mets or the Angels head crosstown to play the Dodgers. This season, we get to see the surprising Marlins face off against the equally surprising Rays. Florida hasn't seen this kind of interstate interleague action since the 2000 election.

But the biggest point in interleague's favor is how easily fans and players have absorbed it. Everyone squawked at first, the way people always do when facing change to long-established habit. And there are still fans and bloggers who rail and rant against the impurity of it all, the unfairness of a team being judged by a record made up of teams outside its own league. But most of us have accepted it, even looking forward to the unique angle it creates on a season. Commentators and analysts talk about the best interleague pitchers and hitters, and speculate as to whether a given matchup might be a World Series preview or replay.

People, for better or worse, are always thus. We can't comprehend our lives being changed, whether it's the change of the legal drinking age, interleague play, or new security restrictions or baggage charges at the airport. Eventually, unless the change is utterly odious (see "Prohibition") we learn to live with the new world it creates, and we absorb it and accept it.

This isn't to say that we should welcome any and all changes to the game we all love, but we should realize that change is not inherently bad (even as it's not inherently good). It's fine for people to squawk for a while, since this is what makes us stop and consider changes before implementing it. But once change happens and it seems to work, we should all just get over it and accept it.

Like many innovations in the game before it, from the determination that four balls make a walk to the lowering of the pitcher's mound, interleague play is here to stay, and really, there's far more good than bad in it. So let's all sit back and enjoy the unique perspective we're afforded by AL-NL games. As long as it continues to be the exception and not the rule, it's good for the game and its fans, and allows us all to see the game in a new way. I can't think of a better result than that to any kind of change.