From: CAVGEOE@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu
Subject: Re: Interleague-play, anyone??
Organization: Yale University
Date: Thu, 09 Apr 92 15:42:27 EDT

In article <1992Apr8.185415.28666@cs.brown.edu>
cs132107@cs.brown.edu (Michael Kalman) writes:
 
>
>         I, for one, think its a great idea, but one which might be
>difficult to get past traditionalists.
>         It seems ludicrous that 26 teams (soon to be 28) compete for the
>same World Championship trophy, and yet each team sees only about half of
>its competition for it in a season.  They're supposedly playing the same
>sport in each league, aren't they?
>
     It seems ludicrous to me that there are playoffs between teams who
have already been proven to be better or worse during the regular season.
If two teams have faced two different sets of opponents, it adds meaning
to the playoff series -- this is why the World Series is so much better
than the NLCS or ALCS.  No one really believes, for example, that the 1987
Twins were *better* than the Tigers, we all know that they got hot at the
right time.  But it can still be argued that the 1990 Reds were better than
the A's -- they had no common opponents.  Interleague play would diminish
the respect accorded to the world champs -- it would be easier to argue that
another team was really the best in baseball.  Of course, the championship
series makes that possible as it is; I won't go into my opposition to the
NL/ALCS because I'm not in a masochistic mood today and don't need to be
flamed.  The next best thing is unbalanced schedules; at least in the NL
(this year for the last time?) the CS has *some* meaning while in the AL
the six-game difference in common opponents is hardly enough to justify
holding a best-of-seven series to determine the champion.
 
>        I think 2 games against each team in the other league, a la the
>NBA, would greatly enhance the regular season w/o at all ruining
>the World Series.
 
     The operative phrase here is "a la the NBA".  Anytime you mention
"NBA" and playoffs in the same sentence without a negative particle
appearing somewhere, you know the proposal is bad for baseball. :-)
 
>        With 28 clubs beginning next year, each team could thus play 28 games
>against the other league.  That would still leave 134 intra league games to
>be played by each team.  This would also make an unbalanced schedule a little
>more do-able.  Each club could then play 13 x 6= 78 games against its own
>division, and 8 x 7= 56 against the other division.  Thus, almost half of
>each teams games would still be intra-divisional.
>
     One-half intradivisional games is *NOT* enough to justify a CS.  What
if Boston had gotten lucky in 1988 and beaten Oakland, would that have been
right? (I like Boston a hell of a lot more than I like Oakland, BTW; I'm just
calling this one like I see it.)  And don't tell me last year's classic
between the Braves and Twins would have been as good if they had played
a couple during the season:  there'd be less challenge for the scouts, less
novelty for the fans (if someone bothers to flame this vague phrase I'll
bother to explain it), to name just two reasons.
 
Jeff Caveney
GO BRAVES!
1st place! -- the magic number is still 161 :-(