By Tom Carpenter
Daily Cougar Staff

Interleague play is to baseball what the Inquisition was to religion: a bit extreme, with little saving grace.

Once again, the closet queens of baseball (because they're such a drag), the owners, determined that the rich traditions of professional baseball could easily be jettisoned when their margin of profit shrunk and disappeared because of their own foolish decisions.

Oh yes, I've heard of the "Subway Series" between the Mets and the Yankees that drew great crowds, but for every rivalry that blossomed with interleague play to give the fans something to talk about, there was a clinker like the Astros-Twins series.

If interleague play was anything more than a shotgun panacea for the owners' pockets, the officials who scheduled the games would have had the Astros playing the Rangers on a regular basis. Insipid contests between teams that have nothing in common except being members of organized baseball would not have materialized.

The Astros played the Chicago White Sox, the Minnesota Twins, the Cleveland Indians, the Detroit Tigers and the Kansas City Royals in interleague play this season. None of them are teams that exactly stir Astros fans' passions.

What's more ridiculous than having a pitcher in the American League, who hasn't swung a bat in years, bat in an away game against a National League team? If an American League pitcher made it on base, would he even know where to run when the ball was hit?

Then, in the American League parks, throw the manager's strategy out the window. Forget pitching changes and the timely use of double switches and pinch hitters. Just put in another long-ball slugger as the designated hitter and play home-run derby.

What about teams that are in the thick of a pennant race in their division? Rather than fighting it out with their division rivals, they have to play teams that have no bearing on their division race.

If Houston and Cincinnati are fighting for the Central Division title and they get stuck playing an American League team, one of them could easily gain an advantage over the other because of the schedule.

Whoever played the Baltimore Orioles would be in a better position than the team that had to play the New York Yankees. Scheduling is not an exact science.

Baseball fans across the country have cooled to the idea of interleague play. Attendance in these games has dropped substantially since the concept was first introduced. The uniqueness of interleague play has worn off.

I'm not a baseball purist. Adding a wildcard team to the playoffs was an idea that was long overdue, given the expanded number of teams in each league.

Baseball has always been a game that was passed from generation to generation, with the rules of play clearly defined. But that tradition is being systematically corrupted and destroyed by the new generation of owners.

Interleague play follows in the footsteps of the designated hitter, lower pitcher mounds, shortened fences and hopped-up baseballs.

These changes have had a profound affect on professional baseball and the record books.

Baseball fans everywhere are caught in a conundrum. They can accept the diluted version of baseball or refuse to watch the games. The orbital shots leaving the ballparks last year kept everyone's interest on the game -- uncomfortably so, I think. This year, there is no repeat of the blasts from the immediate past to keep everyone focused on the games.

When I jumped on the Internet to the baseball chat room, nobody wanted to talk about interleague play. They were excited about David Cone of the New York Yankees pitching a no-hitter into the seventh inning.

People who love baseball will ignore the travesties that the owners submit them to if they have the chance to watch a no-hitter. There's just something about baseball and the drama of a perfect game that makes you forget interleague play is not in baseball's best interests.

But then, Cone won't have a perfect game going into the eighth inning today. The Yanks are playing the Expos.