Rainy Weekend Starts with Rain Out Tonight
Inter-league play will have to wait at least one more day in Boston. Due to the rainy weather here in Boston, there will be no game tonight. But fear not friends with tickets to tomorrow afternoon’s game - you will still get the Matsuzaka-Smoltz matchup you wanted!
Interleague play, in general, is a relatively new concept. It began on June 12, 1997, meaning this is the 11th year it has happened. You can read all the history you want on InterLeague Play on Wikipedia.
Instead, I want to focus on the Braves since they are in town, and specifically on Chipper Jones and the comments he made last week, basically accusing the MLB for being greedy and making their season unfair. His arguement is legitimate in my opinion, given the Braves have to play the Red Sox 6 times and nobody else in the division plays them at all. Especially when your rival is in the American League East, it seems a bit unfair. I mean, who would you rather play 6 times? The Red Sox or the Royals (Colorado gets that pleasure)? The system is unfair, and the reason is a financial one. The real goal of the so-called rivalries is to get Mets-Yankees, Cubs-White Sox and Giants-As games as far as I can tell. What other teams actually have natural rivals? Some may argue that The Rangers and the Astros are rivals, but those cities are actually 257 miles apart. Are these teams really competing for fans? No, its really just an excuse to boost the attendance in a few select parks.
You could argue that since its pretty much coming down to Braves or Mets in the NL East, the fact that they are playing both the Yankees and the Red Sox respectively is a push. Though true, that is a coincidence and doesn’t really defend the system at all.
I love interleague play, and would love to see a Mets-Yankees game some time, but out of respect for the game, I think we need to end these ‘natural rival’ games because they are really just a stupid excuse for a few teams to sell a few extra tickets. I’d rather go play Kansas City again.
Stumble it!