The end of interleague as we know it?

Baseball is a strange sport. In most sports, your goal is to take the ball (or puck), and carry it past the defenders, across the court/ice/field to score. In baseball you're still trying to get the ball past the defenders, but scoring runs with your body - back in the exact place you started. Major League Baseball is pretty strange even among other major professional sports, in that it's actually comprised of two leagues, with significantly different rules.

 Obviously, I'm talking about the designated hitter rule: the National League has the pitcher hit, and the American League sits the pitcher down and gets an extra offensive player in the lineup.  Because interleague games are played with home field rules, the American League pitchers typically get drilled in the finer points of hitting (mostly sacrifice bunts and how not to get injured swinging the bat and running to first) in the weeks before interleague play starts.

But due to the Astros shift from the NL to the AL, interleague play will no longer be limited to two stints before the All-Star Game. No, now that there are six divisions of five teams, scheduling will require one interleague contest each day, meaning that AL pitchers must be prepared to hit about once a month all season.

For instance, the Red Sox pitchers will have their first taste of batting in interleague at the end of April, with a two-game series in Philadelphia, then they'll head to San Francisco for a three-game set against the defending champs and to LA to play three against the Dodgers in late August. The last chance for Red Sox pitchers to make their case for the Silver Slugger award will come in the second-to-last series of the season, two games in Colorado at the end of September.

All in all, the Red Sox will have to do without the DH for just ten games - but at random intervals. Joel Sherman of the New York Post thinks that the overhaul in scheduling is bound to lead to more pitcher injuries, and eventually the end of pitchers hitting in any league. The players union would be much more likely to accept an expansion of the DH role, because it allows aging sluggers to prolong their career.

Personally, I think it will be a sad day indeed when some pitcher steps up to the plate for the last time. I understand the practicality of phasing out the rule disparities between the two leagues in this manner, but at its heart baseball is a game of nostalgia. Every rule change meets resistance (ranging in severity from the horrible threats faced by the great Jackie Robinson to the minor chorus of whining about last year's playoff expansion), but over time most fans come to realize that change can be good - while still reminiscing about the good old days.

The Red Sox and the World Baseball Classic

There's less buzz about the World Baseball Classic among Red Sox fans this time around than there has been in the past - mostly because far fewer Red Sox players are among the participants.  In 2009, the Sox lent out David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Marco Scutaro to various teams, while this year the Sox major league players at the WBC are limited to Shane Victorino and Alfredo Aceves.

Aceves, playing for Mexico, and Victorino, playing for the USA, are both in Pool D for the first round, and are playing in Phoenix, Arizona. It's likely that at least one of them will advance to the second round, which will be played in Miami, and should USA or Mexico make the semifinals and finals, they'll be headed out to AT&T Park in San Francisco. If you want more detailed info about this year's World Baseball Classic, check out this awesome infographic from MLB.

Former Red Sox Daisuke Matsuzaka was the MVP in the 2006 and 2009 tournaments, leading Japan to the title in both of the first two WBCs. However, the thirty-two year old pitcher is not on Japan's roster this year, guaranteeing that there will be a new MVP for the first time in the WBC's short history. My money is still on Japan to take the whole thing, but I couldn't begin to make an MVP projection.

The Red Sox will face off against the Puerto Rican WBC team in an exhibition tonight at JetBlue Park. John Lackey will start the game for the Red Sox, but he is just one of five Sox pitchers scheduled to get his work in during the contest.

On aging and injuries

If one of the single greatest thing about being a baseball fan is watching young prospects come up, contribute every day, and become stars, then one of the hardest things is watching as franchise stalwarts age out of their heydays. Every year we citizens of Red Sox Nation speculate that this will finally be the year that Yankees' core shows some age (Mariano Rivera can't be human), and every year we seem to be wrong.

But we spend very little time anticipating the inevitable decline of our own players, perhaps in denial that our heroes can succumb to trivial human weaknesses like age. But of course, members of the Red Sox do get older, and they eventually bow out, or we have to watch them struggle through their slow decline. Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield might have been able to scrape out another year or so, but they elected (under some pressure, admittedly), to step aside gracefully.

So where am I going with this? If you looked at the photo at the top when you got to this page, you already know: I'm talking about David Ortiz. I certainly don't think that Ortiz is done, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think that the years of 140+ games are probably over.

It's only mid-spring training, but we're still dealing with the aftermath of the achilles problem that Ortiz suffered last year. The designated hitter is confident that he'll be available for Opening Day, and the medical reports out of camp don't suggest otherwise, so barring a setback, we should see #34 on the field when regulation play starts.

I sincerely hope that Ortiz can make it through the season without a stint on the disable list, but that's a gamble for players fifteen years his junior, so realistically it's likely he'll lose some games. Even though it's certainly not going to be this year, David Ortiz's final season as a Red Sox is on the horizon, and I for one am going to begin to prepare myself for that emotional time right now.

It's going to be even harder to see Big Papi go than most players, because he is now officially the last holdout from the 2004 Championship squad still on the team. When he goes, that is officially the end of an era. But Big Papi is on the Red Sox for the foreseeable future, and I plan to enjoy it to the fullest - as soon as he's healthy.