The schedules for the 2007 baseball season was released a while back and today, for whatever reason, I started flipping through it a bit to see, specifically, what teams were going to be playing each other in interleague games this season. Another pro-interleague argument: it’s the only interesting thing to look at on the schedule each season. I was primarily looking to see who the Mets were drawing this season and, unfortunately, it’s not the White Sox. While the rest of the NL East is playing the AL Central, the Mets draw Oakland, meaning the Mets will face all four of the 2006 American League playoff teams.
Regardless, as I was looking through it, I saw that the AL East is playing the NL West this season. After realizing this, I wanted to find out if the Dodgers were coming to New York or if the Yankees would be playing them in Los Angeles. Much to my surprise, I discovered the Yankees and Dodgers would not be playing each other.
Can anyone tell me how in the world Major League baseball makes an interleague schedule that puts the AL East and the NL West together without putting the Dodgers against either the Yankees or the Red Sox? The Dodgers are playing the Blue Jays, Devil Rays, and Orioles but somehow manage to skip both New York and Boston. How is this even possible? Putting aside Boston, why the heck would MLB skip out on putting their two largest markets in a three game set that has the added benefit of an enormous amount of history? Not only that, but it’s the last time the two franchises are going to be able to play in Yankee Stadium, as the NL West won’t match up with the AL East again until 2010 at which point the Yankees will be in their fake new stadium and they’ll have squandered a “Yankees/Dodgers, One More Time” storyline. In the Red Sox, you have two 100+ year old teams facing each other which, while I’m not familiar with history between the Dodgers and Red Sox, I’m assuming there’s got to be some.
Can anyone explain the thought process (or know how MLB figures out the schedule) behind not taking advantage of two marquee match-ups. And also, if you’re a Giants fan, you can’t be happy that your team is drawing the Yankees and the Red Sox while Dodgers get the AL East’s fluff teams?
