It’s Okay To Be Different

 By: William Earl Robinson Jr.

As we move into the second month of the regular season I have a confession to make: I HATE INTERLEAGUE BASEBALL!!! I hate how it cheapens the regular season, and I especially hate how it ruins the all-star game. I hate how it lessens the thrills of the World Series and I hate how it’s supposed to create these fake intercity rivalries that honestly nobody gives a fig about. I hate interleague baseball and it must be whipped from the face of our great sport. “So let it be written, so let it be done.” – Yul Brynner.

The abomination known as interleague baseball started in 1997 and has been a blight to game ever since. MLB originally thought that it would create a bit of interest if there were some games between baseball clubs in cities of close proximity. They hoped to create some new rivalries between the teams in New York, and other teams that were in close proximity to each other. While with Interleague play we do get some interesting matchups between teams like the Mets and Yankees. What they didn’t expect where the hideous games between teams such as Cincinnati and Texas, or Baltimore and Minnesota, or Atlanta and Seattle.

I harken back to my youth, an amazing time in baseball that was known as the late 80’s and early 90’s when God like men strode on the base path. Names like McGwire, Sosa, Canseco, Davis, Ryan, Ripken, Sandberg and the list goes on and on. Throughout the regular season these amazing players from the same league would compete against each other to determine ultimately who was the greatest team in each league. There wasn’t the randomness of a wild card game, and there wasn’t as many divisions and it was wonderful. It truly meant something to win your division and it meant even more to win your league. Then on a magical night in July the greatest players of each league would compete against each other in an important game to truly test their skills against one another. This was the night where you would get to see the match ups of your imagination. This is the night where you would see Mark McGwire face off against Greg Maddux, or Nolan Ryan face off against Mike Piazza. It was magical and it made the All Star game a must watch event! Now all of these teams play each other throughout the whole season and there’s no reason to have to use your imagination as to what would happen if the best players in the NL and AL face off just wait a week or two and they’ll probably play each other. It makes the All-Star game nearly inconsequential and ultimately in my opinion is what lead to the tie and the even dumber home field advantage rule. In this case more is not better.

It also takes away from the uniqueness of the World Series. I thought that is was neat two teams that had never played each other before play in the World Series. It was thrilling to see what would happen when Kevin Mitchell took on Dennis Eckersley. Now you know exactly what is going to happen because these two players would have faced each other on multiple occasions by this point. I also think that it ruins the suspense of seeing what the pitchers in the American League can do with a bat and who your national league teams would play at DH. Now that is already determined. I hate it! Plain and simple I think it sucks.

So now there is all of these rumblings about putting the DH into both leagues and when I hear of it I think of the Interleague system and I think, “Ugh this is gonna suck too.” It’s okay to be different. It’s part of the appeal of baseball. Baseball is a planning man’s sport. It’s a sport where you have to think about strategy and honestly having all the teams be the same makes it boring. I like that there is a difference between the American League and the National League and I think that it’s cool that these teams sometime have to do something out of their norm. I think it’s fun to see them try to come up for a game plan for the World Series for what they are going to do when their lineup has to be different. This simple thing adds a lot more intrigue to the game and with it a lot more fun.

So in conclusion. Baseball is the greatest sport in the history of the United States. It has survived the Depression, World Wars 1 and 2, Vietnam, Spanish Influenza, The Black Sox scandal and the Strike and Steroids and it’ll survive Adam Wainwright’s Achilles. Those of us who love the sport love it because of it’s intrigue, it’s oddities and it’s strategy. If you take that out of the game and make it blander, then baseball won’t be as fun anymore. Besides It’s not only okay to be different, it’s very wonderful.