The Problem with Interleague Baseball

This weekend marks the beginning of Major League Baseball's Silly Season.

Interleague play, Bud Selig's homage to NFL football, opens on Friday—with its mixed rules, its weird looks, and its downright wrong approach to the game.

That's all been changed now.

I'm a baseball traditionalist. In fact, I'm as passionate about preserving the national pastime as any neocon is about continuing to screw up the country.

I do like the wild card system, because it makes for better races down the stretch. But interleague play and the designated hitter are terrible ideas that should be dumped in the dustbin of baseball history...right next to five balls for a walk and hitters calling for the location of the pitch.

On the whole, Selig has been a good commissioner. His insistence on revenue sharing (no conflict there, right Bud?) has been great for the game, allowing small-market teams—in theory—to thrive off the mega-corporation known as the Yankees. Sure, New York can still sign Roger Clemens for part of a season...but George Steinbrenner adds 40 percent of the price tag to the pile of cash that the Royals and Rockies spend on Gil Meche and, in Colorado's case, membership in Focus on the Family.

I guess God is a traditionalist too, because the Rockies never win. Or maybe that's just because Dan O'Dowd (or is it O'Dudd?) runs the team worse than any GM this side of Jim Bowden.

But back to interleague play. If you must have it at all, my suggestion would be to allow teams with natural rivalries to play annual home-and-home series. Thus, the Mets-Yankees, White Sox-Cubs, Orioles-Nationals, Marlins-Devil Rays, Royals-Cardinals, Rangers-Astros, Indians-Reds, A's-Giants, and Dodgers-Angels could get their regional business taken care of...and then we could get back to league play.

And while we're at it, let's separate the leagues again. Get back to two league presidents and distinct league umpiring crews. And have the American League scrap the DH within two years, after allowing a few non-fielders their final shots at glory.

If Selig's looking to leave his mark on the game, he could do far worse than getting back to basics.