Baseball’s Top Dog Puts Positive Spin On Interleague Play

Finally, joy at the top.

“I’ve had dozens of calls from the owners, and all of them I mentioned said, ‘Thank you,”’ Bud Selig, baseball’s long-term acting commissioner, reported.

Has any owner expressed dissatisfaction?

“Not one,” he said. “Most of them said, ‘We should have done this sooner.”’

The favorable reaction was expected. After the first five days and nights of interleague competition (from Thursday through Monday), paid attendance had increased 37 percent, from an average of 25,833 for intraleague contests to 35,290 for the interleague games.

“Baltimore and Cleveland sell out, anyway,” Selig said. “I suppose I can say many of the experts were wrong. How do you like this one? Kansas City at Pittsburgh: In their three-game weekend series, they drew 108,000 - that’s more than twice what the Pirates had been averaging. And Seattle. The Mariners, on their first four dates, averaged better than 50,000.”

And weren’t you the father of the thing?

“I don’t like to crow. But this time I will,” he said. “On the first day after I succeeded Fay Vincent, we created a schedule-format committee. John Harrington (president of the Boston Red Sox) was appointed chairman. This is what we started out to do. It led to three divisions, the wild card and now interleague play.”

Selig was asked if he or any of the other owners feared the interleague slate would dilute interest in the World Series. Also, if the crossover novelty would diminish with time.

“I can understand the anxiety of those possibilities,” he replied. “But what’s happening is more than an attendance increase. It’s the amount of fan interest that has been created.

“And if two teams - say, Baltimore and Atlanta, who already have played three interleague games - meet in the World Series there could be more interest than ever.

“I keep hearing that baseball is damaging its purity, that we have compromised the league championships. The other major sports have made many more schedule concessions to draw bigger crowds, and no one seems to object. The naysayers only complain about baseball.”

Selig predicted that interleague play will heighten interest in the postseason playoffs.

“And guess what? Even the Players Association approves,” he said. “Brett Butler of the Dodgers, who is a great player, was quoted as saying he doesn’t like it because it means more travel. And he’s also angry because there have been so many two-game series.

“That won’t happen next year. It’s a legitimate complaint. We’re going to change that. But what really caught my attention is that Gene Orza, the attorney for the players’ union, told Butler to ‘cool it.’ Even Orza doesn’t want to kill a good thing.”

Still, there are some reservations, particularly in regard to the World Series.

“Put this down in your notebook,” Selig said. “This season is going to be a sportswriter’s dream. You’re going to sell a lot of papers in September and October.

“It’s going to be great for everyone, most of all for the fans. We’re in the entertainment business. The bigger the crowds the better. And interleague play already has proven it increases attendance. I don’t understand what there is to knock.”

But, unlike Ivory soap, baseball is no longer 99.4 percent pure.

“I’m very pure,” Selig said. “I take two showers every day.”

Then he asked, “What’s going on at Comiskey Park?”

He was told the White Sox were leading the Cubs 4-2 in the seventh inning before a standing-room-only crowd of 44,249, a regular-season Comiskey Park record.

“Great,” Selig said, “but I have to hang up.”

Why?

“I have to study realignment,” he said. “That’s next. Then it’s time for another shower.”