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| - Interleague or interconference matchups have long been the norm in other professional sports leagues such as the NFL. But while regular season interleague play was discussed for baseball's major leagues as early as the 1930s, the concept didn't take hold until the 1990s (at least in part as an effort to renew the public's interest in MLB following the controversial 1994 players' strike). Interleague play was not, and is still not, a universally endorsed innovation. However, it has added a new dimension to the major-league game, creating some matchups that had not been seen before, and some which held special significance for geographical and historical reasons.
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| abstract
| - Interleague or interconference matchups have long been the norm in other professional sports leagues such as the NFL. But while regular season interleague play was discussed for baseball's major leagues as early as the 1930s, the concept didn't take hold until the 1990s (at least in part as an effort to renew the public's interest in MLB following the controversial 1994 players' strike). Interleague play was not, and is still not, a universally endorsed innovation. However, it has added a new dimension to the major-league game, creating some matchups that had not been seen before, and some which held special significance for geographical and historical reasons. The first interleague game took place on June 12, 1997, as the Texas Rangers hosted the San Francisco Giants at The Ballpark in Arlington (now Ameriquest Field in Arlington). There were four interleague games on the schedule that night, but the other three were played on the West Coast, so the Rangers-Giants matchup started a few hours earlier than the others. From 1997 to 2001, teams from the American League West played teams from the National League West, etc., typically scheduled to alternate between home and away in consecutive years. However, in 2002, the league began alternating which divisions would play which divisions, and thus in 2002 the American League East played the National League West, the American League Central played the National League East, and the American League West played the National League Central. Matchups which had been of particular interest prior to this format — mainly geographic rivals — were preserved. This is expected to be the continuing format of the interleague schedule though corresponding divisions were integrated in this rotation in 2006. The designated hitter (DH) rule is applied in the same manner as in the World Series and the All-Star Game. In an American League ballpark, both teams use a DH to hit for the pitcher. In a National League ballpark, both teams' pitchers must bat. Some baseball observers feel it might be fairer to reverse this (in other words, always follow the DH rule of the visiting team instead of the home team), thereby offsetting the home-field advantage. Until 2006, the National League held an 1104-1095 advantage over the American League as of 2005, although in 2006 the American League was dominant in interleague play with a 154-98 record bringing the record to 1249-1202. The best record in Interleague play is the New York Yankees of the American League with a record of 103-71, just a game ahead of the Oakland A's who previously held the record (currently 103-73).
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)