Thursday, May 28, 2009

Are Interleague Rivalries Good for Baseball?

Simple question. Should baseball blindly rotate the interleague matchups each year, or should they work around the same home and home matchups year to year? Personally, I like interleague rivalries. It adds something to it for me. I’d like a system where I could watch the Dodgers and Angels play a home and home series against each other every year in something other than the spring training Freeway Series. Take a look at these primary interleague matchups:

Anaheim vs. LA (yeah, those not familiar with me, I never refer to the Angels as LA)
Tampa Bay vs. Florida
Boston vs. Atlanta
Chicago WS vs. Chicago Cubs
NY Yankees vs. NY Mets
Texas vs. Houston
Baltimore vs. Washington
Detroit vs. Pittsburgh
Minnesota vs. Milwaukee
Cleveland vs. Cincinnati
Toronto vs. Philadelphia
Kansas City vs. St. Louis
Oakland vs. San Francisco
Seattle vs. San Diego
Colorado and Arizona are left out and can play each other a couple more times.

Wouldn’t it add something a little extra to the game if we could count on these matchups every year? Some are already considered rivalries, but you’ve got to think that others would develop with consistent matchups.

My top 5?
1) Anaheim vs. LA (admittedly biased) (who could forget Chan Ho Park nearly karate kicking Tim Belcher, a former Dodger?)
2) NY Yankees vs. NY Mets (Clemens/Piazza)
3) Chicago White Sox vs. Chicago Cubs (Michael Bennett going facial on AJ Pierzynski; loved it!)
4) Kansas City vs. St. Louis (Don Denkinger’s call in the 1985 World Series)
5) Oakland vs. San Francisco (the earthquake of the 1989 World Series)

Tampa Bay vs. Florida (this one needs a few years)
Toronto vs. Philadelphia (I loved the 1993 World Series)

Want to see these annually?
Got any other favorites?

3 comments:

  1. It would be infinitely wittier if you left us to notice your failure to refer to the Angels as an L.A. team. This, as opposed to informative comments more appropriate for schoolchildren.

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  2. Doesn't seem too fair to the Mets (with games worked into the schedule vs. the Yankees) versus the Cardinals (vs. KC). Then again, rivalry teams tend to operate on roughly the same budget, so maybe this idea bears fruit towards slightly effecting parity. I'm all for it as a Cards fan!

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  3. That's another great part/point to the rivalries - the budgets. I definitely think that adds more to it.

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