Baseball should keep its house divided.

• Author: Barrett, Wayne M.

When the united states was being ripped apart by civil War almost 140 years ago, Pres. Abraham Lincoln said that a house divided against itself could not stand. Since the turn of the century, the National and American leagues have been engaged in their own un-civil war and, unlike 1860s America, the bad blood and hard feelings between the two have been a good thing. Separation reigned supreme, and baseball was the better for it. Then along came the National Pastime's version of the bubonic plague -- interleague play. Worse still, no one seems to mind. The grand experiment of commingling the schedules has been met with sweeping approval from players, fans, management, and the press.

Baseball owners want interleague play because it's a great way to exploit the fans. For example, Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf tried a ticket scalping scam when selling ducats to the Windy City battle between the Chisox and Cubs. Anyone who bought a ticket to the intra-city affair also had to purchase tickets to three other White Sox home games. The fans revolted, though, and sales were so slow that Reinsdorf had to rescind his edict.

In Miami, meanwhile, Florida Marlins owner Wayne Huizenga, a cutthroat if there ever was one, pulled a real doozy when the New York Yankees came to town. With torrential all-night down-pours in the forecast, Huizenga nevertheless refused to call the sell-out game. (It's up to the home team, not the umpires, to cancel a contest, until the lineup cards are exchanged.) Hours and hours of rain delays later, the contest was postponed at midnight and the players went home. Too bad no one informed the fans until after 1:00 a.m. How's that for a chintzy way to sell a few extra hot dogs and soda?

The madness didn't end there. Instead of a traditional makeup double-header the next day, Huizenga called for a day-night twin-bill, whereby the park is emptied after the first contest and refilled for the nightcap. Trouble is, no one told the fans. Moreover, the games, instead of day-night, were late morning-mid afternoon. As a result, many ticket holders to the previous night's rain-out either didn't show up for Game 1 or unwittingly tried to use their tickets for Game 2. Also, a number of Game 2 ticket holders misunderstood the circumstances and tried to use their passes to get into Game 1. As a final insult, the two games were scheduled so close together that the parking lot turned into a huge grid-locked mess, as Game 1 patrons were...