Interleague Play Whining Continues

Interleague play begins in Major League Baseball Friday, and you know what that means ...

Bigger crowds.

AL pitchers having to (gasp!) hit.

Whining.

When interleague play started in the 1990s, it created all sorts of intriguing matchups we hadn't seen before. The regional rivalries -- namely Yankees/Mets, Cubs/White Sox, Angels/Dodgers, and Rangers/Astros -- got varying amounts of interest, but they sure were fun to watch for the most part. The crowds made them fun.

Of course, crowds weren't going to show up when the Pirates played the Tigers, but it was made up for when Detroit fans got to see a team like the Cardinals, or when Pittsburgh fans got a chance to watch the Yankees.

This year, one of the highlights of the interleague schedule is this weekend's series between the Cubs and Red Sox at Fenway Park, marking Chicago's first visit to Fenway since 1918. That's pretty cool, right?

Well, it's not cool enough for chain-smoking Tigers manager and apparent curmudgeon Jim Leyland.

The appeal of interleague play, Leyland said, “has worn off for me. It was a brilliant idea to start with, but it has run its course.” He knows that higher-ups, such as his good friend Commissioner Bud Selig, won’t want to hear it, but Leyland spoke his mind all the same. “I’ll probably get chewed out for (saying) it,” he said, “but I think a lot of people feel the same way … I’m on the (Commissioner’s) committee, and I’ll probably get a phone call,” said Leyland, “but I don’t really care. That’s totally ridiculous.”

When I think of things that are ridiculous, I'm usually going to come up with stuff that isn't very good.

How is interleague play bad? San Francisco scribe -- and apparently a fellow curmudgeon -- Bruce Jenkins offers up an explanation.

Check out these discrepancies:

The Giants' series at Detroit represents their only interleague road trip (Oakland doesn't count). San Diego goes to Boston, Minnesota and Seattle.

The Giants play only four American League teams. Arizona plays six, with road trips to Detroit, Kansas City and Oakland.

While the Giants face Minnesota, Cleveland and Detroit from the A.L. Central, the Colorado Rockies have four series against that division and a trip to Yankee Stadium.

The Giants play 15 interleague games. Arizona plays 18, as does Oakland.

Tell me this stuff won't be a bone of contention if a team gets knocked out of the postseason by a game or two.

Really? So who's going to have a case? Whose schedule is easier?

Last I checked, each team in the majors played 162 games -- 81 home and 81 away. Each team will usually have a couple roadtrips that approach or surpass double digits in the number of games scheduled, and each team usually has a homestand or two of similar length. Each team plays a ton of division games, and each team plays everyone else in their league (American or National) both home and away.

If the Giants miss the playoffs by a game or two, will they complain that they had to play two series against a pretty good Oakland team while Colorado was playing Minnesota and Detroit? Or will Colorado whine about playing at Yankee Stadium if they miss the playoffs?

There's an easy solution.

Win more games.

If you don't like the interleague schedule, it doesn't matter. Just win.

(Full disclosure: Jenkins' next note in this piece calls out Ned Yost for being a hot-headed moron after he left a pitcher out to allow 14 runs in just over two innings of work this week. He deserves credit for that, even if I've been saying that since like 2007. Yost is a terrible manager who has no business working with so many young players like he is in Kansas City.)

Anyway, I'm beyond tired of hearing about the unequal schedules you get out of interleague play. No one's schedule is the same, not even within divisions. If the Brewers beat out the Cardinals for a playoff spot, do you think Tony LaRussa is going to go on a diatribe about the fact the Brewers got more home games against the Mets than his team did?

(Actually, LaRussa might do something like this, but you get the point.)

It's ridiculous.

Really, this is nothing more than selective whining by people who don't like interleague play. They thought the fad was gone, but attendance figures and television ratings continue to prove them wrong. They think the fans hate the thing, but the fans don't. They think the players hate it, but they're not vocal about it if they do.

So now they're going to hammer on unequal scheduling, without realizing that no schedules are equal in baseball, with or without interleague play.

Having dinosaurs like Leyland out there using bad arguments to support their hatred of a good thing in baseball doesn't make anyone look good.

J.J. Hardy Turns Into Whiner in Minors

For J.J. Hardy, it's been a rough season. Especially the last three weeks.

It started Aug. 12, when the Milwaukee Brewers sent Hardy to Triple-A Nashville. It was a no-brainer for general manager Doug Melvin, who watched Hardy slump at the dish all season, and then watched as it seemed to start affecting his defense.

The Brewers wanted to take a look at Nashville shortstop Alcides Escobar, who -- unlike Hardy -- was actually performing.

This doesn't seem like a difficult concept to understand, unless you start overthinking things.

Enter Hardy, who apparently decided it was a good idea to start overthinking. You could argue that this was part of his problem when he had a bat in his hands.

See, Hardy was scheduled to be a free agent after the 2010 season. The only way this could be delayed was if he spent 20 or more days off the Brewers' major-league roster at any point. Since he didn't have enough service time to refuse a minor-league assignment, he had to go to Nashville.

He was called up Tuesday, after 20 days.

Hardy, with the help of his snake-oil salesman of an agent, has decided this could have been a deliberate ploy by the Brewers.

"It's been simmering. There are questions in my mind," Hardy said. "The more and more I think about it, the more I think, 'Why would they do this to me?'

"It beat me up inside. For them to give up on me this year, it kind of hurt. I definitely feel like I was being punished."

Well, J.J., you're not hitting. That's your job.

This is supposed to be punishment. With all due respect to the Nashville franchise, it's not like the Brewers sent you there hoping you'd celebrate it.

So when general manager Doug Melvin told Hardy he was going to the minors to work on things, Hardy didn't protest. He admits it was "a tough pill to swallow," but he understood he wasn't performing and needed work.

Hardy was fine with the move.

Then he talked to Mike Seal, his agent. Seal informed Hardy if he ended up being a September call-up, which is expected to happen today, he'd spend exactly 20 days in the minors and lose service time in the majors. If a player spends fewer than 20 days in the minors, his service time isn't affected.

Now the Brewers will control Hardy for one more season because he won't have the service time required to be a free agent after 2010. Instead, Hardy will go through an extra year of arbitration and won't be on the open market until after the 2011 season, also making him more tradable.

That's when Hardy's mood changed.

"At first I felt OK. It would give me a chance to relax," said Hardy, who avoided arbitration this season by signing a one-year, $4.65 million deal in the winter. "But that's when my agent told me about the 20 days.

"That's when I was like, 'Now I understand.' The more I replay the conversation with Doug, the more I realize there was never a chance for me to be called up before (the 20 days)."

Especially when you throw up a less-than-sparkling .279 on-base percentage while in the minors. Surely, the Brewers expected better numbers out of a one-time All-Star facing Triple-A pitching. It would be an absolute stunner if they didn't.

Hardy's assumption that the team had no intention of calling him back before the 20-day clock had run out is completely irrelevant. He gave them no reason to call them up before then.

Seriously, if Hardy had gone down to Nashville and hit .300 with a handful of extra-base hits over a week to ten days, do you think they would have left him there? The Brewers have been starving for consistent offense for a good portion of the season.

Seal said sending a player with Hardy's service time and production to the minors is nearly unprecedented, so Hardy can't help but think it was done to control him for an extra year. Seal doesn't think this move can be defended by the team sticking with Hardy early on.

"I don't think the right move was sending him down just because they stuck with him four years ago," Seal said. "I don't think sending him down was the right move, period."

Then what's wrong with asking the player to let his performance do the talking? If Hardy's so miffed about this awful miscarriage of justice, he should have shown it in the minors, instead of giving Melvin more reason to think he's forgotten how to hit.

"I think there was some good intentions, but at the same time I don't think I'll ever believe 100% that I was sent down to work on my swing," Hardy said. "I think they've always had Escobar in the back of their mind."

Perhaps the Brewers saw the writing on the wall with this talented young player. Maybe they knew that he would turn into a whiner at the first sign of trouble.

Also working against Hardy is his unconscionable unwillingness to change positions.

"If the Brewers want to use him, I feel like I'll still be playing shortstop somewhere," Hardy said. "Just not with Milwaukee. There's nothing I can do about it, so it's one of those things I don't worry about.

"But no, I don't see myself moving (positions) anytime soon."

You can either have the character enough to do what is best for your team, or you can be J.J. Hardy, who is evidently only worried about J.J. Hardy.

It's unsettling, because he's a guy many fans have latched on to over the years. He turned himself into a popular player with a bit of defensive flair and constant improvement at the plate. Now, he may have just burned the bridge with the Brewers. How he conducts himself over the last month of what is now a lost season will be key. If he truly wants to be a Brewer long-term, it would be smart of him to look at moving to the hot corner, a spot the Brewers need at least some short-term help in.

Either that, or he can pack his bags for wherever Doug Melvin wants him to go.