Interleague no longer an experiment
By Mark Newman / MLB.com
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With a pitch from Darren Oliver of the American League's Rangers to Darryl Hamilton of the National League's Giants, the two-year experiment of Interleague Play began. No one was sure what to expect in June of 1997, but everyone had an opinion.

"I'm not a fan of this," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "But I think it's going to be electric out there. I think the fans are going to be into it. As much against it as I am, I think this stuff is going to be fun."

"I am cynical about the blatant transience of interleague play. ... these people don't know what they're doing," wrote New York Times columnist George Vecsey. "Interleague ball is a two-year experiment. I suspect it is one year too many. ... (It's) cheap thrills."

"I think the fans are going to make it special," said David Cone, who was pitching for the Yankees and previously the Mets. "You're going to have a lot of electricity in the stands. ... I think the excitement will be up. I think the attendance will be up."

Five years and 1,192 Interleague games later, more people are celebrating than debating the advent of that "two-year experiment." And we are ready for more. The first stretch of Interleague Play begins Friday with 14 series openers, including the Giants' first visit to Yankee Stadium since they moved west in 1957. We get a possible All-Star pitching preview Saturday when Curt Schilling faces Pedro Martinez at Fenway, and we get a veritable convention of future Hall of Famers when the Braves visit the Rangers at The Ballpark at Arlington, where it all began.

Yes, Interleague Play has worked, and everyone still has an opinion.

"It's a great time of the year," Commissioner Bud Selig said. "With everything going on off the field in baseball these days it puts the focus right on the game where it should be. I consider it to be one of my major accomplishments of my years as Commissioner. That and the Wild Card playoff system and the unbalanced schedule. They've all done great things for the game. You know the first people I ever heard talk about Interleague Play? Bill Veeck and Hank Greeenberg. And they were right. It took us too long to get there, but we're finally there."

"I think it's a great opportunity to get to see different teams, different players ... to see a different style of baseball in the other league," said Texas outfielder Jason Romano. "It's a great opportunity to let the fans see the American League play the National League, to give them a little idea of the two types of games."

"I predicted a long time ago they would do (Interleague Play)," said Don Larsen, who pitched a World Series perfect game for the Yankees, and also played for the Giants. "And I think it helps because certain people don't see a lot of the players they might enjoy."

In 2001, Major League Baseball averaged 33,703 fans per game during Interleague Play, a period covering 19 days and 252 games. The Interleague average was 13.9 percent greater than the intraleague average. Overall, the experiment has been a smashing success in terms of attendance around the Majors, exemplified by that first Mets-Yankees Subway Series breaking the three-day attendance record for a series at renovated Yankee Stadium (168,719).

Fans have flocked to see such memorable moments as Mike Piazza vs. Roger Clemens; St. Louis ace Darryl Kile shutting down the same Kansas City club that broke Cardinal hearts down I-70 in 1985; an infamous 1997 Seattle-Colorado game in which Larry Walker sat himself rather than face Randy Johnson, leading up to a hilarious All-Star at-bat that season; the Mets-Boston series in 1997 that evoked memories of Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner; new in-state rivalries such as Cubs-White Sox, Dodgers-Angels, Indians-Reds, Phillies-Pirates, Giants-A's, and Rangers-Astros (and even an in-country Jays-Expos matchup); and Cliff Floyd homering in three consecutive games in 1997 against the Red Sox, helping the Marlins not only on their path to a World Series championship but also to the best overall record (51-33) in the first five years of Interleague Play.

When asked in June 1997 if he thought the World Series would be diminished should the same teams have met during the season, FOX analyst and former two-league star Tim McCarver said: "That's foolish. It's akin to discouraging foreplay before making love."

Indeed. The first Subway Series in 1997 only whetted our appetites for that same matchup in the 2000 World Series -- a New Yorker's dream.

Interleague Play again will be spread over two stretches this summer, and all teams begin Friday with the exception of the Brewers and Pirates, who meet in a regular series before starting their Interleague schedule Monday. Consider the drama:


Arizona makes one of the most anticipated road trips in club history, not only bringing Red Sox Nation a matchup of division leaders, but also a dream pitching matchup with Schilling going for No. 12 against the unbeaten Martinez. From there, the D-Backs head to Yankee Stadium, where we remember their losing last October before ending the Bombers' World Series winning streak back in Phoenix. Harkening back to Byung-Hyun Kim's nightmare on the mound in the Bronx, Arizona manager Bob Brenley said, "If there is a baseball god, we'll have three save opportunities and BK will go in there and 1-2-3 'em three times. In my dreams, that's what happens."

Kansas City and St. Louis renew their rivalry at Kauffman Stadium, and the park is sure to include more than a few Cardinals fans who won't soon forget Don Denkinger's call at first base in the 1985 Series.

Roberto Alomar's return to Jacobs Field with the Mets after his blockbuster trade from the Indians this offseason.

And most notably, that return to Yankee Stadium by the Giants 45 years after Horace Stoneham decided to take them west. The Giants-Yankees series not only has historical implications, but it also brings Barry Bonds to the short right-field porch in the Bronx for the first time.
Roger Clemens said you get "geared up" for a series in the Bronx like this one. "The fans will be very pumped up for Interleague this year. We got to see him over there when we opened up their stadium. It's going to be great. It should be a good time." Teammate Jason Giambi, who has faced Bonds in Interleague Play with Oakland, said, "He's one of those rare guys that the older he keeps getting, the better he keeps getting. That's what everyone is going to come to see -- whether he hits one. It's going to be a great matchup -- one of the best pitching staffs in baseball against one of the best hitters in the game. It should be good."

Let's not pretend that this is a unanimous victory for the Interleague movement. There are still purists out there, such as Rangers catcher Todd Greene. Asked if he is a fan, the 31-year-old catcher replied: "I prefer to stay in the league until the World Series, but I don't think a lot of people care what I think. That's my personal opinion. The American League plays the American League, the National League plays the National League.

"This year, for example, you have two teams -- Boston and New York -- battling for a Pennant who are not playing the same teams in Interleague play. That can create an unfair advantage for one of those two teams. That's just one example of it not being, I guess you could say, fair. A big-league team is a big-league team. But, let's face it, some teams are a little more of a challenge than others."

Fans will see a new format this time around. For the first time, clubs in the NL East will face the AL Central, the NL Central will play against the AL West, and the NL West will match up with the AL East. Certain clubs will not face every team from their Interleague counterpart division and some clubs will face Interleague opponents from multiple divisions. Additionally, clubs will continue to play their prime rivals (for example, the Mets and Yanks), so we should have yet another chance for a Piazza-Clemens matchup.

Just as many remember Mo Vaughn's mammoth home run off the Shea Stadium scoreboard on Friday the 13th of 1997 -- helping Boston fans ease their suffering over that '86 World Series -- we also recall Piazza tormenting Clemens with a two-run homer, a three-run homer and, yes, a grand slam. That one in front of 55,822 Yankee Stadium fans on June 9, 2000, marked only the second time in 3,542 career innings that The Rocket had given up a bases-loaded longball.

Nor was that the end of it in the Piazza-Clemens saga, which spilled over into an October; Clemens hit Piazza in the helmet with a pitch, and then there was the much talked about play where Piazza broke his bat on a Clemens pitch, after which Clemens threw a piece of the bat Piazza's way as he sauntered toward first.

Torre said after the grand slam that Piazza is "a very frightening guy to have on the other side," and Piazza has been frightening to almost every pitcher in Interleague Play. His .371 average leads all hitters in these games. Atlanta's Greg Maddux leads all pitchers with 13 victories. Anaheim's Darin Erstad leads with 124 hits. Toronto's Carlos Delgado and Cincinnati's Ken Griffey Jr. share the home run lead with 28 apiece. Sammy Sosa leads with 77 RBIs, and Mariano Rivera easily leads closers with 27 saves.

It's unknown if we'll ever have the chance to see Bonds play in a World Series, but who wouldn't pay to see Rivera face Bonds with a chance to close out a game in this series? The Giants and Yankees bring two of the four best Interleague records into this series.

"Just like the movie, "The Pride of the Yankees," there's a lot of that going around and I would think if you were to put on the pinstripes, you would really feel the Yankees history of the ballclub," Giants pitcher Russ Ortiz said. "At the same time, now that we're going to play the AL East this year, it's just another trip back East and it's a lot of miles. There's only a couple other teams that have to deal with that. Things like that, it's a little burden. I can do without it, but at the same time, it's pretty neat to be able to play teams that you don't normally play."

Jay Witasick, who pitched for the Yankees in the last World Series and now plays for the Giants, captured the mood as most traditionalists still watch with intrigue.

"When there's that much history, you can feel it," he said. "You don't have to be a baseball historian to know what's happened there. You don't have to know the whole complete history to know that there were a lot of games that were played there that structured the game as we know it today. It was a great experience for me to play there and a lot of these that have never been there, I'm sure it'll be something they'll never forget. You'll know that it's had an impact on people because when we leave to go to Toronto, we'll be still talking about Yankee Stadium."

Major League Baseball's 2002 schedule features 252 interleague games played in two segments, from Friday through June 23 and then June 28-30. Giambi will see it from the other side now after moving from Oakland, and he can't wait to have Bonds in the house ... as well as another monster crowd.

"The fans love it, and whatever brings the fans out to the stadium is the most important thing," Giambi said. "I enjoy playing in front of a packed house, so I'm all for it."



INTERLEAGUE LEADERS IN WINS
NAME W L
Maddux, Greg 13 3
Radke, Brad 12 6
Rueter, Kirk 11 2
Burba, Dave 10 4
Leiter, Al 10 8
Sele, Aaron 10 5
Colon, Bartolo 9 2
Lieber, Jon 9 5
Mussina, Mike 9 6
Wells, David 9 3

INTERLEAGUE ERA LEADERS
NAME ERA INN ER
Anderson, Matt 1.90 23.2 5
Johnson, Randy 2.20 98.1 24
Colon, Bartolo 2.33 92.2 24
Cabrera, Jose 2.37 19.0 5
DeJean, Mike 2.44 44.1 12
Redman, Mark 2.67 27.0 8
Wells, David 2.78 106.2 33
Appier, Kevin 2.84 95.0 30
Radke, Brad 2.87 125.1 40
Plunk, Eric 2.91 21.2 7

INTERLEAGUE LEADERS IN SAVES
NAME SV
Rivera, Mariano 27
Hoffman, Trevor 20
Hernandez, Roberto 19
Percival, Troy 19
Wetteland, John 19
Nen, Robb 18
Benitez, Armando 16
8 tied 13

INTERLEAGUE BATTING LEADERS
NAME BA AB H
Piazza, Mike .371 310 115
Martinez, Edgar .361 191 69
Biggio, Craig .360 297 107
Erstad, Darin .355 349 124
Joyner, Wally .353 170 60
Morris, Warren .352 108 38
Palmeiro, Orlando .352 108 38
Fernandez, Tony .349 146 51
Davis, Eric .349 109 38
Alou, Moises .347 202 70

INTERLEAGUE LEADERS IN HITS
NAME H
Erstad, Darin 124
Glanville, Doug 118
Piazza, Mike 115
Durham, Ray 109
Biggio, Craig 107
Jeter, Derek 103
Rodriguez, Ivan 102
Anderson, Garret 101
Damon, Johnny 101
Surhoff, B.J. 98

INTERLEAGUE LEADERS IN HOME RUNS
NAME HR
Delgado, Carlos 28
Griffey, Ken Jr. 28
Palmeiro, Rafael 27
Sosa, Sammy 26
McGwire, Mark 24
Karros, Eric 23
Piazza, Mike 23
Thome, Jim 23
4 tied 21

INTERLEAGUE LEADERS IN RBIs
NAME RBI
Sosa, Sammy 77
Delgado, Carlos 75
Griffey, Ken Jr. 69
Piazza, Mike 69
Snow, J.T. 69
Bagwell, Jeff 67
Thome, Jim 67
Ordonez, Magglio 66
Martinez, Tino 63
2 tied 62

Mark Newman is a contributor to MLB.com. Barry Bloom, Rich Draper, Mark Feinsand, Josh Rawitch and Jesse Sanchez contributed to this report. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.