Quote:
Originally Posted by oman19
Did they decide to go with the regional rivalry idea every year after they saw it was popular the first year or was that the plan all along? For some reason I seem to remember that they decided to go with the regional rivalry thing after the fact.
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The 'traditional rivals' thing was always intended to be there from the start (you can find interleague play proposals from the early 1970s calling for four or six games between such rivals; the proposals never went anywhere because the NL wasn't interested).
When interleague play was first started, it paired up the same divisions from each league, e.g. East vs. East, Central vs. Central, and West vs. West. MLB then started rotating the interleague games between divisions in 2002, but retaining each year the 'traditional rival' matchups, e.g. Yankess vs. Mets, Cubs vs. White Sox, etc. Though of course, not every club has a 'traditional rival' which only adds another layer of complexity (and imbalance) in how interleague games are apportioned each season.