By Seth Herrold
Interleague play is picking back up in baseball this weekend and, most likely, you either love it or hate it. I haven’t found too many people that don’t have a strong opinion on it one way or the other. If you are one of the people who hate it, though, you better get used to it.
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Next season the Houston Astros are moving out of the National League Central and into the American League West. With that, each league will have three five-team divisions and, with an odd number of teams in each league (15), there will be at least one interleague series going on every day of the season. The era of the two leagues being completely separate is all but gone.
I land on the side of the fence with people who like interleague play. I think it’s nice to play those teams you don’t ever get to see. It’s fun to watch the Royals play in those ballparks they rarely, if ever, play in. I would love to go see the Royals play at Wrigley Field someday. Hopefully, when the Astros move, that will become a possibility. It’s also fun to watch the Royals pitchers, who don’t ever hit, step into the batter’s box. The majority of the time it is comical watching them attempt to hit, but occasionally you get to see a gem like Zack Grienke, who I saw hit a home run in one interleague road game. Then again, watching the pitchers record outs in a position normally held down by designated hitter Billy Butler sure makes me thankful the Royals are in the American League. National League fans may think otherwise, but having a great hitter in place of a pitcher in the lineup makes the games more exciting to me.
As a fan of the interleague games I will say this: the I-70 Series is horribly overrated. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing the Cardinals. I think it is a great rivalry for statewide bragging rights. One year the Royals swept the Cardinals and our resident Cardinal fan in the office at that time, Kathy Nolke, bought a small broom and gave it to me. Since then it has become a traveling trophy and whoever’s team wins the season series gets the broom.
All that said, however, the series has become overrated in the fact that the teams are taking full advantage. Tickets to the series in Kansas City are anywhere from $5-to-$10 higher than normal game tickets. The games sell out at a ridiculous rate and forget about getting something cool at the gate. The games almost always sell out so why should the club pay money to dish out a giveaway item. My wife’s sister and her husband have lived in the Kansas City area for a while now and haven’t ever been to an I-70 Series game and they think that is just a crime. So this year we are going to the game on June 22. I’m not saying a word, but I’m sure once they fight through a crowd made up almost in half by jean-short wearing Cardinals fans and pay $50-$60 for their tickets online through Stubhub.com they will see why I like going to “regular” games better.
Give the series it’s due, though, it is something every Royals and Cardinals fan should experience at least once in person. I have seen many of these games, some in Kansas City and some in St. Louis. Both stadiums are well worth the trip. Hopefully the Royals make my trip to the I-70 Series worth it this year.