Media Savvy
Get It Right
By Stan Savran

It's over for another year. We anxiously await another just like it, where the haves will continue to have...and the have-nots won't. For, you see, that's what interleague play is all about. They used to say, "What's good for U.S. Steel is good for the country!" Now, substitute Yankees and baseball, and you've got the same thing.

Interleague play was a great idea when conceived. Then again, so were asbestos and eight track tapes. But while technology rendered them obsolete, money and power corrupted the concept of interleague play.

It was supposed to give fans a chance to see the other guys; to provide a boost to an industry staggered by the 1994 strike. And it worked. It boosted interest in baseball the way the syringe worked for Jose Canseco. And it was a damn fine idea.

Until the Yankees discovered how beneficial it was for them to play the Mets every year. And the same revelation hit Chicago and L.A. And so to accommodate those with muscle, the 98 pound weaklings on baseball's beach got sand kicked in their faces.

So the trim and financially fit got their money bloat, while those that could really use it got Kansas City, Detroit, and Minnesota. Year after year. And to be fair, the Kansas City's and Detroit's got stuck with the Pittsburgh's and Milwaukee's. The rotation was supposed to change in 1999. It didn't fully until three years later. And it was eight years after inception that the Pirates finally met the YankeesÉin New York, of course.

But that's not the worst of it. The worst of it is that interleague play has now distorted not only the schedule, but competitive balance in the process. Some teams play 12 games against the other league, others in the same division play 18. You are trying to determine a division champion based on as common a schedule as possible. This distorts that competition. In the ultra competitive National League East, the Mets have to play the Yankees six times, while the Florida Marlins play Tampa Bay the same number. Where's the equity in that? And despite their best efforts, baseball folk are wrong for assuming that there is a rivalry between the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros, or the Cleveland Indians and Cincinnati Reds. Merely sharing a governor does not mean there's a rivalry. How could they look at the attendance figures for the Pirates and Indians' games from the onset of interleague play and not make that a yearly series? That's as telling an indictment of this system as any.

Further, you cannot have an unbalanced schedule and interleague play. One or the other. Not both together.

It's not so much that I'm against the idea of interleague play as I am opposed to the way Major League Baseball implements it. Which is much the same way I feel about baseball itself. I love the game, just not the way MLB runs it.

Stan Savran hosts a sports talk show 3-6 pm weekdays on Fox Sports Radio 970.