How To Fix Baseball: Interleague Play

All true fans of baseball have at least a few aspects of the game they would like to change. I have several. First of all, I love interleague play. There needs to be more of it. Traditionalists will argue that NL and AL teams shouldn’t play each other until the World Series, but that is an antiquated system that will hopefully never be revisited. The majority of fans prefer to see every team and every player each year; this can be proved by looking at attendance since the recent inception of interleague play. There is a noticeable spike in turnout at the gate when AL teams visit NL cities and vice versa. Personally, I would love to watch my home team, the Atlanta Braves, play, for example, superstar Josh Hamilton and his squad the Texas Rangers every year. Unfortunately, under the current system I will only get this opportunity as often as Haley’s Comet comes around! MLB needs to take a page out of the NBA’s book. In the NBA, Eastern Conference teams play Western Conference foes twice a year: one at home and one on the road. They play their own conference 4 times per regular season. This way fans can show up to see their favorite superstars play at least once a year and still have a weighted system to make sure the best teams make it to the playoffs.
So, here is my plan. I would have the Braves play every AL team one 3 game series every season taking turns at home field advantage. This would make sure you can watch in person every other year or at least watch it on TV every single season. Next, I would have teams battle their division rivals 12 times per year in four 3 game series. Having extra games against division enemies makes for an exciting race down the final stretch. The other franchises in the same league but not same division would battle it out in two 3 game series. At the present time there are 16 teams in the NL and 14 in the AL; this presents a scheduling problem for my plan. However, I have it all figured out. To start, one of the 6 NL Central teams should be moved to the 4 team AL West. This way every division has 5 teams. Not only does this solve the schedule snafu, it also levels the playing field for teams in those 2 aforementioned divisions to make the playoffs. With an odd number of teams in each league, there would be at least one interleague matchup at all times. I believe the TV networks that cover MLB would enjoy this opportunity for better ratings, and it would probably make more revenue for MLB. So let us tally up how many games this leaves us with: The Braves would play a total of 45 games versus the AL. They would play the 4 other NL East teams a total of 48 games and non division same league teams a total of 60 games. This gives us a grand total of 153 games, short of the current 162 game schedule. I, for one, believe that is plenty long enough a season to decide who makes the playoffs. With this strictly 3 game series format, teams would only have to play 6 games a week every week. There are so many nagging injuries for baseball players that I think 1 day off a week would be good for the game. The day off should be a Thursday or Monday as it currently set up, however, sometimes teams are now playing 4 game series and 7 day weeks. So, that is my plan for making the schedule more fan friendly. I also have thoughts on the DH, All-Star game, bad umpires, corked bats, instant replay and steroids. More to come from this die hard fan. If you have any comments, questions or snide remarks I would love to hear from you. I can be reached at jbred30605@yahoo.com

John Baldwin