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 By now, most have heard about the delay in voting to approve Jim Crane as the new owner of the Houston Astros. Part of the sale is the fact that MLB and the MLBPA want to see expanded playoffs in 2013 and need to balance out the NL and AL with 15 teams a piece.
To make that happen, the Astros are being asked (prodded?) into jumping into the AL, something that Crane and his large ownership group believes they should be compensated for to the tune of a reported $50 million.
Some will say, “So what? I could care a less as I’m not an Astros or a fan of an AL West team.”
Here’s why nearly everyone will care…
With the jump to 15 teams per league, to deal with the odd numbers in each league, there will be an interleague game played every day of the season. That’s right, you not only will get the short stretch of interleague in the first half of the season, the longer stretch in the summer, and a game every single day of the season.
So, for the purists that never have taken a liking to those two interleague stretches each year, you’ll have to hear about it daily.
The expanded playoffs aren’t coming until 2013, so you’ll have to wait at least another season. But take it in… interleague is coming in April… and May… and August… and September… and… and…
 Maury Brown is the Founder and President of the Business of Sports Network, which includes The Biz of Baseball, The Biz of Football, The Biz of Basketball and The Biz of Hockey, and is a contributor to Forbes SportsMoney blog.. He is available as a freelance writer. Brown's full bio is here. He looks forward to your comments via email and can be contacted through the Business of Sports Network (select his name in the dropdown provided).
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Plus the 15-15 arrangement provides for MUCH more consistent and better schedule formats than is the case at present.
Also, it is technically possible to have no interleague series taking place for at least part of the week. This would require some teams to have two off days in a row. You'd have the two teams who'd normally play an interleague series instead get two off days, Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday and Thursday two different teams, who would otherwise have played an interleague series against each other, get those two days off. You'd then have a regular interleague series over Friday-Saturday-Sunday.
This process could be repeated for about six weeks, if I recall my scheduling calculations correctly.
However, under the current CBA, having two scheduled off days in a row is only permitted during a team's first week of the season and during the All-Star break.