Why Inter-league Play Makes Sense

I am of a mixed mind about the inclusion of inter-league play and find the usual arguments about some teams being at a disadvantage rather banal. Sure it might not seem fair for one team to face the tougher teams in an opposing division while some other team gets the dredges, but that happens all over the schedule. Besides this, there are always NL teams playing with themselves because of the fair more imbalanced 14 AL teams to 16 NL teams. When you have 4 divisions with 5 teams but 1 division with 4 and another with 6, things are wrong. When you have teams playing 18 teams against the teams in their division, but only 6 against other intra-league and 6 against their inter-league rival, things are wronger. Anyway, I don't mind the games because there is so much other crap that is wrong that the inter-league part seems trivial.

What I have heard spouted this year is how successful interleague play is despite fan, player and manager complaints. What I have yet to hear is an actual satisfactory explanation for this. With this in mind, I came up with my own plausible theory.

Being an out of region fan means taking advantage of every opportunity to see the teams I follow. Because I choose not to get the MLB package, I can't see every game all the time, but I can see the games where my team plays the local team(s). I believe the boost in attendance for inter-league games comes from the displaced fan. I know my brother has rarely been as excited as last year when his favorite team (Red Sox) came to visit the hometown Reds. In fact, he made it to all 3 games of the series. I think this happens all over. There's a good chance I'll be visiting a friend in Washington and will end up at the Red Sox-Nationals game this summer. It is not because the Red Sox-Nationals matchup is intriguing. It is solely because the friend I'm visiting is a Sox fan and will take advantage of seeing the team in his new hometown park. The out of region fan is the main reason that MLB keeps seeing gate revenue spikes and it seems to me to be a smart move financially.

All of the matchups that get listed as the reason that inter-league sucks are matchups between low attendance teams or, at the least, poorly playing teams. The worst thing that happens to those matchup gate revenues is that they stay the same. For the season ticket holder, they are going to the games regardless of the matchup. Same with the most casual fans, who tend to plan their games based on the date or the opportunity, not on the visiting team. As more and more teams see gate spikes for the most favored nations (Yanks, Sox, Dodgers), they realized that if they put something novel out there, there's a chance they will reach a market that they would not have otherwise. At worst, the teams see their usual attendance. At best, they get a spike from the displaced fan.

Less Hate Here

Despite the disheartening loss I described earlier, the Indians came back to take the following two games from the Royals and win a series outright for only the 2nd time this season. It is amazing that it took a colossal collapse to prevent the Indians from sweeping the series. Good times.

I hate baseball

So there are times when it is really convenient that I can sometimes pick up the local Cleveland broadcast on my car radio.  Last night, for instance, I tuned in just in time for the bottom of the 9th in a game the Indians were leading 5-2.  I was able to hear the collossal collapse of "closer" Kerry Wood, who gave up homer, homer, walk, triple, walk-off sac fly to kill everything good in my soul.

League Leaders- AL edition

Continued league leaders

AL Hitters
Batting Average (I know I don't like it, but...)
Victor Martinez .400
Miguel Cabrera .378
Adam Jones .370

Yes, I only included this category because I love Victor.

At Bats
Aaron Hill 167
Vernon Wells 160
Alex Rios 158

No coincidence that all 3 are Blue Jays and the BJ's currently lead the majors in offense.

Runs
Adam Jones 35
Marco Scutaro 34
Nick Markakis 34
Brian Roberts 31
Jason Bay 31

3 of the top 5 are Orioles, but the orange birds remain last in the AL East. Could be because they have given up the most runs.

Hits
Victor Martinez 58
Aaron Hill 58

Nobody else above 50.

RBI
Evan Longoria 46
Jason Bay 38
3 others tied at 33

Longoria has been a Yankee and Red Sox killer this season, but has also been a steady producer everywhere. Only included Bay because I think he's my brother's new favorite player. Bay won him a beer from me in the Red Sox Indians-Series.

Stolen Bases
Carl Crawford 24 (0 caught)
Jacoby Ellsbury 16 (4 caught)
Chone Figgins 15 (2 caught)
Bobby Abreu 13 (0 caught)
BJ Upton 11 (2 caught)

Crazy to see Abreu running again, since he doesn't seem to like to do that in the outfield. Of course the lead is Crawford who is single handedly winning the steals category for me in 2 of 3 leagues. More importantly, he's stolen more bases on his own than 16 other MLB teams (9 AL teams).

Extra Base Hits
Longoria 27
48 hits total (11 HR, 16 Doubles). I suppose this has something to do with his really high RBI. Over half his hits are better than singles. Awesome.

Hit by Pitch
Carlos Quentin 8
Kelly Shoppach 8

Get on base any way you can.

AL Pitchers
Roy Halladay 61 (8 starts)
Zach Greinke 60 (8 starts)

Both are averaging well into the 8th inning and doing so with impressive results.

Strikeouts
Justin Verlander 69
Zach Greinke 65

If I was doing both leagues at once, I would point out that both league leaders have the intials J.V. (Javier Vasquez leads the NL with 67K).

Losses
Cliff Lee 5
Jose Contreras 5

Lee's ERA 3.00, Contreras's ERA 8.19

Saves
Brian Fuentes 9
Frank Francisco 9
Jonathan Papelbon 9

Frankie Frank has yet to give up a run this year, but looks to be out for a bit due to nagging injury. Of these 3, only Fuentes has blown a save (2 actually).

Complete Games
Greinke 4

Only 13 pitchers have thrown complete games and only 4 have thrown more than 1 this season. It's Greinkes's Cy Young to lose at this point.

Wild Pitch
Scott Kazmir 6
Gavin Floyd 4
AJ Burnett 4

Not much to say here. I'll end this post now.

Wright Stuff

Of course moments after I wrote that Wright was in the caught stealing more than successful attempts he goes out and steals 4 bases, taking him out of the category completely.  Got to love baseball.