Big Changes Coming to Major League Baseball

This is MLB commissioner Bud Selig, former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers. He is a man who is constantly citing "tradition" for not doing more to include instant replay, yet loves to fuck with tradition. Under Selig, we've seen the introduction of the Wild Card playoff spot, interleague play, and the merging of the NL and AL offices into a single MLB office headed by 1 commissioner. Now to be fair, I wasn't very interested in baseball when I was younger, but those 3 actions fundamentally changed the game of baseball. Now, Selig will be introducing 2 more big changes to baseball, but this time it's because the players want it.


The first big change is that the Houston Astros will be moving from the NL Central to the AL West in 2013. The 2 leagues will now have an equal number of teams, forcing at least 1 interleague series to be going on at any time for the first time since the 1998 league expansion. The second change will be the introduction of a 2nd Wild Card playoff spot, possibly as soon as the 2012 season. It is rumored that the 2 Wild Cards in each league will face each other in a 1 game play-in, which would increase the length of the postseason by 1 day.


I'm really not sure how I feel about these changes, but it seems to be evenly split among fans. The concept of a 1-game Wild Card play-in does interest me, especially because it increases the incentives for winning the division. As far as constant interleague play goes, it makes me question why 2 leagues even still exist. The reason for the interleague play was initially to revive interest in the public following the 1994 strike, but now it's just a novelty that causes groan-fest matchups. It's not like the 2 leagues are vastly different either, the only difference between them is the Designated Hitter rule.