An interleague twist

Interleague play came early this year. The yearly foray into the foreign waters of the opposite baseball league started May 20 as opposed to the early June start dates of previous years.
With interleague play comes the annual debate over its usefulness, its abrasiveness toward the traditional "you stay in your league, we'll stay in ours" mentality in baseball, the confusion over the use of the designated hitter and/or pitchers batting, and the holes it creates in other parts of the schedule.
Interleague play, plus the unbalanced schedule that sees every team play each one of its division rivals 19 times a season, means the Indians get to see old-time rivals such as the Yankees and Red Sox (rivals that are hated far more than the White Sox or Tigers) a mere six to nine games per year. The same goes for any other team that resides outside the American League East.
Usually, it isn't the unbalanced schedule that gets most of the heat for this. It's interleague play. Simply put, opponents say, fans of an AL team don't want to forego a series against the Yankees to see a series against the Milwaukee Brewers. There is logic in that.
But there is also logic in saying that fans of AL teams would like to see Barry Bonds in action. Fans of NL teams would like to see the mighty Yankees come to town. That's the driving (and money-making) principle behind interleague play. Natural geographical rivalries also pique fan interest, such as in two-team towns (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles) and AL-NL cross-state rivalries (Ohio, Missouri, Texas and now Baltimore-Washington).
As was pointed out in The Plain Dealer this morning, interleague play is here to stay. Attendance figures signal their approval, and that will always drive what owners agree to do. If Indians owner Larry Dolan could guarantee a sellout every night by having Bob Wickman pitch in nothing but a g-string, well, avert your eyes.
But there are still things baseball can do to spice up interleague play further. This morning's Plain Dealer column shed some light on the concept, promoted by Florida Marlins manager Jack McKeon, of playing by the opposite league's rules in the home park. In other words, pitchers would bat in AL parks, and the designated hitter would be used in NL parks.
This twist would benefit the fans of AL teams more than anything. While fans of the Indians would be treated to seeing C.C. Sabathia swing for another home run to match the one he got this weekend in Cincinnati, fans of the Reds would be treated to Willy Mo Pena sitting on his butt between at-bats. But fans of the Reds would also see a potential infusion into a lifeless offense by having an actual hitter batting in the lineup, as opposed to Aaron Harang or Eric Milton.
Again, it's novelty. And newness equals people in the seats, according to most major-league promoters.
In a sport that has given us wild-card play, interleague play and the winning league of the all-star game being awarded home field advantage in the World Series, no traditionalist-chafing idea is too outlandish.
Coming soon, Bud Selig allows the use of aluminum bats in the fifth inning only. He'll call it the "rally monkey inning" and get Pepsi to sponsor it nationally.