THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601210267
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB MOLINARO
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
Interleague play is a good publicity stunt.
The mere announcement of the idea has focused attention on baseball even as the NFL winds up for its Super Bowl delivery.
The Lords of Baseball are not generally recognized for their public relations savvy, but this time they've lined a double off the wall. They've managed to take people's minds off the game's real needs by offering up a slick gimmick and then telling us it is what the fans truly want.
What baseball needs, what the fans want, is a labor agreement. What baseball could use right now more than a few inconsequential games between the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals is a commissioner who can see through the owners' schemes.
The media establishment is falling in line behind interleague play, which is scheduled to begin in 1997.
The boosters are right about one thing: It cannot hurt major league baseball any more than management and the players' union already have.
Think about it, though. Who outside Southern California will care if the Dodgers and Angels get together for three games on Memorial Day weekend? How much national interest can be created by a Labor Day series between the Red Sox and Phillies?
This is baseball trying to be like the NFL or the NBA. Whatever happened to baseball's desire to be different from the other sports?
At their roots, baseball fans are richly parochial. Their allegiances belong to the teams of their childhood or of their current community.
Why should a Cincinnati Reds fan care who wins a brief series between the Astros and Rangers? The Giants and A's? The Twins and Cubs?
When the Cardinals and Royals met in the 1985 World Series, it was a struggle to maintain interest. Why would a St. Louis-Kansas City series during the season's dog days be met with more enthusiasm?
The time for interleague play might have been 20 years ago, before cable TV made baseball from both leagues readily available to everyone with a clicker.
It's not as if fans living in American League communities are denied the pleasure of watching Greg Maddux pitch or Barry Bonds swing a bat. Television made them national icons. You can dial them up with a touch of a finger.
Baseball claims it has surveys showing the need for interleague play. But instead of trying to resemble something it is not, baseball could help itself by trying to look like its old, best self again.
It can do this by maximizing traditional rivalries, not by creating new, phony ones.
It's a good bet that what Boston baseball fans want are not three games with the Mets in September, but an additional series in Fenway Park each season against the hated Yankees.
As it is, the Yankees invade Boston only twice a year. Two series for a total of seven games. The Red Sox, in turn, visit Yankee Stadium for only a pair of series. This is a waste of good history, not to mention hostility.
By offering interleague play as a quick fix, the owners let on that they don't know what's broken.
If people are turned off to baseball, if the bonds remain severed, a few novelty games only will add to the fans' general ambivalence.
Interleague play is not a terrible idea.
It's just not a very important one. by CNB