Put It Back The Way It Was

Professional sports have elevated self destruction to the level of an art form. The very real possibility of a lockout looms over the NBA. Steroid use scandals and rumors have place both the athletes and the leagues squarely in the cold glare of a disappointed public. And the all time leader in shooting themselves in the foot, the NHL, still does not have a clue as to whether they will play this season and if so, how they will repair the damage done to the sport and fan base.

While most of the problems stalking professional sports are obvious in cause, greed, the solutions are never easily discerned. An exception to this is interleague play in major league baseball. Whatever novelty value provided by pitting AL teams against NL teams during the regular season, has long since disappeared. Few natural rivalries actually exist and face it folks, watching a bad NL team is no different from watching a bad AL team. In this case, the solution is easy: get rid of all regular season interleague play, with the exception of the All Star Game.

Our local worthies, the Minnesota Twins, are currently engaged in a desperate struggle with hated rivals the Los Angeles Dodgers (sarcasm intended). Local media has been busy digging up any possible tidbit from the 1965 World series won by the Dodgers in a desperate attempt to generate interest. Of course, with the games being played in LA at night, it is highly unlikely that many Twins fans here in Minnesota are still awake when the games end.

There are other reasons to trash interleague play including the potential to disrupt division races. It is not necessary to rehash the full list of interleague play negatives: a quick google will turn up more information than you probably wanted to see. All that remains is to once again make a public request of Major League Baseball:

"Go back to your roots and put it back the way it was."