fixing baseball's over-aggressive scheduling

This is baseball’s “Interleague Rivalry Week”, where all thirty teams play a regional foe from the other league in a home-and-away four game series. For some cities like LA, Chicago and New York it makes a lot of sense. For others, it seems the league is trying a bit too hard to create something that isn’t there. Anyway, here's your latest "what's wrong with baseball."

Here are my issues:

1. Interleague play has run its course and isn’t interesting anymore. The American and National Leagues have different rules and styles and no team cares to change everything for four days. But Bud Selig decided to even out the leagues, moving the Astros from NL to AL, putting 15 teams in each and requiring interleague games to occur every day of the season, not just four weeks of the season. Fine. So why do we STILL have a week where EVERYBODY is in interleague? Isn’t every day enough?

If Bud and his buds still want to have an Interleague Play Week, then enough of the “interleague every day” deal! It’s dumb.

2. I like the idea of having a Rivalry Week where the Mets and Yankees play, along with the Cubs and White Sox. But do we really need to have the Mariners/Padres and Braves/Blue Jays go in the same manner of two home/two away? Is there any special meaning with the Twins and Brewers? This totally cheapens the experience and takes away from the unique spirit that should be there. If you want to make a special week of rivalries, then have those teams that don’t have a natural NL/AL regional rival play a divisional opponent. Then it is special for everyone.

Solution: Make it a true Rivalry Week. Here is how I would shape it. First, keep the interleague ones that make sense…

   ** Yankees vs. Mets ** Dodgers vs. Angels
   ** Cubs vs. White Sox ** Nationals vs. Orioles
   ** Giants vs. Athletics ** Indians vs. Reds
   ** Rays vs. Marlins (sure, why not?)
   ** Cardinals vs. Royals

Match up the others in important divisional and regional meetings…

   ** Braves vs. Phillies ** Red Sox vs. Blue Jays
   ** Rangers vs. Astros ** Tigers vs. Twins
   ** Pirates vs. Brewers ** Diamondbacks vs. Rockies

(We are left with the Mariners and Padres, so maybe baseball got that part right after all…)

Great, that works for everyone! We have a plan that makes every team (well, 28/30) have a relevant series at the same time, whether it be a classic local clash or a marquee divisional matchup. And maybe over time, the fans in Seattle and the fans in San Diego will decide that North Pacific and South Pacific is worth fighting over, too.