Debby Wong-US Presswire
Interleague play aplenty is one way that the 2013 MLB schedule can be looked at and one more could be yet another great idea that Bud Selig and his creative crew have come up with to keep the game of baseball from losing anymore popularity to the NFL (even though they have yet to come around to expanding replay to everything; I’ll save that for another article).
For the first time in MLB history a new season of baseball will begin with a National League team hosting an American League team, when the Cincinnati Reds will take on the Los Angeles Angels on April 1, 2013. This and the need for interleague play to take place just about everyday is a direct result of the Houston Astros changing leagues (following 51 years in the NL) moving from the National League Central to the American League West. Now there will be 15 teams in each league (five in each of the six divisions) which will call for the consistent use of interleague play.
This will make for some interesting situations and scenarios as every time a new series rolls along there will be an American League team squaring off versus a team from the Senior circuit and I for one am extremely ecstatic. Since the inception of interleague play in 1997 it has been one of the special times of the season and now to see this element stretched out over the entire 162-game schedule should be truly phenomenal.
Another major change that the 2013 schedule will provide is something that has never happened before; both the New York Yankees and New York Mets will begin the season in the Big Apple on the same day (April 1st), unless ESPN moves the Yankees opener versus the Boston Red Sox to March 31st for their Sunday Night Baseball telecast.
Everyone raise your glasses, no matter what’s inside of it; here’s to baseball and much, much more interleague baseball beginning soon!
