The Americanational league

Sporting News, The, Jan 29, 1996 by Steve Marantz

As a child following the Pirates, I often heard about a great American League right fielder, Detroit's Al Kaline. Pirates fans believed baseball's best right fielder in those days was Roberto Clemente, but we always were curious: How good was Kaline? Did his arm match up with Clemente's? Was he as dangerous with the bat? Spring exhibitions and All-Star Games offered no true comparison, so barring a World Series meeting we had no way of knowing. Out of such a childish contemplation comes a natural desire for interleague play.

We never saw Clemente and Kaline play against one another, but fortunately the fans of tomorrow will have a little something to go by. Owners finally acted on an idea that has been around for decades, voting unanimously to schedule 15 or 16 interleague games for each team starting in 1997. The plan initially calls for a National League club to play three or four games against each American League club in its corresponding division, bunching them around the Memorial Day and Labor Day holidays. Division matchups would rotate year by year, so that once every three years, for instance, the Rockies would play the Mariners.

Interleague play is an idea whose time has come. It first surfaced in the 1920s at the suggestion of Cubs President Bill Veeck Sr. It was revived in the late 1950s, spearheaded by Indians General Manager Hank Greenberg and White Sox Owner Bill Veeck Jr., and often pushed in this publication. "Eventually," Greenberg said in 1956, "there will be major league expansion, and because of the geographic spread, there will be a need for an interleague schedule." A 1964 survey in The Sporting News found eight of 10 A.L. clubs in support, but six of 10 N.L. clubs in opposition (two in favor, two undecided).

In the early 1970s a committee headed by Brewers Owner Bud Selig explored the idea once again, but it lay fallow until re-emerging with surprising force at last week's meetings in Los Angeles. The vote was unanimous, opposition minimal, leaving only the players' union as the last obstacle to changing a tradition unique in all of pro sport. "It's so logical," says Selig, who two decades later is also baseball's acting commissioner. "The only fair question people could ask is, `How come they didn't do it years ago?' "

But logic often is a matter of interpretation in the overheated wind tunnel of baseball economics. Logic could not prevent the industry's losing $1 billion in the strike of 1994-95, and it may not join owners and players in common pursuit of interleague play.

The sticking point: Interleague play is a matter for collective bargaining. There still is no Basic Agreement and if one is not reached before owners submit the 1997 schedule on July 1, then the union can abort interleague play. Union chief Don Fehr is on record cautiously encouraging the idea; he sees it as a growth vehicle. But Fehr is keeping his eye on the prize - an agreement favorable to players.

Interleague play potentially is a bargaining lever for both sides, so it may become a casualty of war. At issue is the designated hitter used only by the A.L. Ideally, the two leagues would be consistent, both using or not using the D.H. "Unanimity of rules is more important than good or bad of the D.H.," Selig says.

They have been splitting the difference in World Series play - home-team rules prevailing - and a "split" system probably would be used for the first year of interleague play. But such a solution is seen as impractical in the long run. By 1998 there may be as many as 30 interleague games; it would be difficult to tailor personnel to fit both systems. A.L. clubs would be at a disadvantage because their pitchers lack hitting and baserunning experience.

What common interest clubs and players share on interleague play dissolves over the D.H. - a high-paying job for veterans. Average salary last season for 10 regular designated hitters - among them Edgar Martinez, Jose Canseco, Eddie Murray, Paul Molitor, Chili Davis and Juan Gonzalez - was $3.45 million, second only to average pay of $3.57 million for first basemen. Not surprisingly, the union's interest lies in preserving and expanding - to the N.L. - use of the D.H.

Clubs, particularly those in the N.L., prefer to scrap it. Savings would be healthy - an expensive veteran can be replaced by a low-cost backup. A labor proposal given November 15 to the union by clubs - currently under review - eliminates the D.H. The proposal seeking to restrict salaries to 50 percent of industry revenue through a complex tax formula is unlikely to meet union approval. "I don't expect an agreement this season," one N.L. owner says.

Fortunately for fans, clubs and players have no will for a work stoppage; the labor battle will be waged, if at all, in a courtroom. Player agents say the interleague proposal, complicated by the D.H., could become a wedge for clubs to seek an impasse in negotiations. Eventually the whole mess could be dumped back into the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who ruled in the players' favor last March.