MLB 2012: Why Having Interleague Play Makes No Sense

This year, the Toronto Blue Jays had the honor of playing the Washington Nationals, Atlanta Braves and New York Mets in interleague play.

As of June 19, these teams are a combined 19 games over .500.

The Chicago White Sox, a team the Jays are battling against in the wild-card standings, get to play the Houston Astros, Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers. These teams are a combined 37 games below .500.

Last year showed how important one game can be, when the St. Louis Cardinals qualified for the playoffs on the final day of the regular season and went on to win the World Series.

Therefore, it is nonsensical to have two teams that both have a shot of playing October baseball play such uneven schedules.

While I must admit that I do like to see other stars from National League teams, I don’t like it when it’s at the expense of seeing my team in the playoffs. While it is a nice idea, interleague baseball must change how it’s set up, so Major League Baseball can be fairer.  

If you’re going to have interleague baseball, you can’t have teams only playing 18 interleague games. The number has to be much higher—maybe in the 40- or 50-game range. If everyone gets to play one series against a team from the other league, I believe that’s fair.

With Houston coming over to the American League next year, you would get to play all teams from the other league in a three-game series, creating 45 interleague games total.  

While this would lower the number of games against your division rivals, with the second Wild Card added, it makes sense to play everyone else in the league more often.

While baseball is a great sport, it does have its flaws.

If interleague play were fixed to a fairer format, it would give every team a fair chance of making the playoffs and hopefully improve the sport’s popularity.