Here Comes Interleague Play

June 4, 1999 / 12:29 AM EDT / CBS/AP

To fans at Yankee Stadium, Dodger Stadium and Jacobs Field this weekend, interleague play figures to be a big hit.

To Mark McGwire, Pedro Martinez and John Franco, the whole thing is still a big miss.

"It doesn't do anything for the game," McGwire insisted. "It screwed up the schedule and hasn't gained the notoriety they thought it would. I think we should go back to the way the game of baseball is meant to be played."

No such luck, Big Mac.

Instead, interleague play returns for the third season starting Friday night. The featured matchups: New York Mets at New York Yankees, Anaheim at Los Angeles and Oakland at San Francisco.

Also, McGwire and his St. Louis Cardinals visit Detroit while Sammy Sosa and the Chicago Cubs travel to Cleveland.

AND THIS YEAR'S TWIST: Some natural rivals, such as Yankees-Mets, White Sox-Cubs and Blue Jays-Expos, will play six games, up from the previous three.

"Six games is too much," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "If you have to have something like this, three games is enough."

Said Toronto outfielder Shawn Green: "It's kind of weird. We play Montreal six times and some American League teams only seven or eight games."

For those counting, AL teams held a 114-110 advantage last season. The year before, NL clubs had a 117-97 edge.

Crowds ran above the average for those games, though last season's attendance figure of 31,447 dipped from 33,407 in 1997. Naturally, the upcoming games in New York will be sellouts; Minnesota and Milwaukee next week might not do so well.

This year's 252 interleague games will be played from June 4-13 and July 9-20. Originally proposed by owners as a two-year experiment, the players' union gave its approval to continue it this season.

Clearly, AL teams are hurt when they lose the designated hitter for games at NL parks. While Edgar Martinez may become a pinch-hittier when Seattle plays on the road, Anaheim manager Terry Collins intends to use Mo Vaughn - limited to DH duties since May 11 because of a sprained left ankle - back at first base at Dodger Stadium.

"There's a lot of history there," Vaughn said. "They've got a great ballclub, I've got some friends over there. I'm looking forward to it."

Fanfare is certainly down from the first year, when the concept became one of the most hotly debated issues in baseball history. Proponents said the plan would take the sport into the future, while critics claimed it would wreck more than 100 years of tradition.

"I thought it was more exciting the first year," St. Louis manager Tony La Russa said. "I thought the original idea made the most sense - that you give the fans in either league a chance to see all players frothe other league, which means we were going to play the Central, then the East, then the West, instead of just playing the Central all the time."

Once again, though, it will be East teams vs. East teams, Central vs. Central and West vs. West. There are some quirks, however.

Because the NL Central has six clubs and the AL Central has five, St. Louis does not play Cleveland at all. That could be an advantage to the Cardinals if they get into a wild-card race with the Mets.

"We have to play the Yankees six times. I don't think it's fair to do that, especially when they're not in your division, your league," said Franco, the Mets reliever.

"If it was up to me, I'd keep it just National, no interleague at all. But it brings a lot of money to owners, so we have it," he said.

La Russa agreed, up to a point.

"If you wanted to get a microscope out, you might find a little inequity," he said. "I think because of the nature of the game, that stuff works itself out. You're only talking about 15 games."

To Martinez, who pitches for Boston against the Atlanta Braves and Massachusetts native Tom Glavine on Friday night at Fenway Park, this interleague stuff is no big deal.

"It's just other players, I don't see anything exciting about it," he said.

But for Philadelphia manager Terry Francona, there's a side benefit. In a plan right out of the old days, the Phillies struck a deal with Amtrak for a charter to take them to Baltimore this weekend.

"Shoot, we get a train ride out of it," he said. "You can't beat that."