Interleague play wraps up this week, and if nothing else, it certainly seems like things have become a little stale. Overall, the American League has dominated their older brothers since 2004, and that hasn’t changed this season. With the novelty of the in-season, cross-league games worn off, it seems that every year more people are starting to question the necessity of Interleague play going forward. MLB is aware that there are those with their problems, but it does not look like things will improve soon.

Not only does interleague play unbalance a schedule that could really use balancing, especially since the two leagues do not have an equal amount of teams. Yes, it does give cities like New York or Boston a chance to see a budding star like Washington’s Stephen Strasburg, but even that only happens once every six years. The rotating schedule employed by MLB is also unfair in that depending on the strength of one division, say, the AL East, the NL division they are paired against in one season makes it that much more difficult for the NL teams that have to play the New Yorks and the Tampa Bays, as opposed to the division that gets the Cleveland’s and the Kansas City’s.

People have suggested ways to, if not improve, at least re-vamp interleague play, one such idea being to play NL rules in AL stadia and vice versa. While not intentionally, that idea will be implemented in Philadelphia this weekend when the Phillies take on the Blue Jays at Citizens Bank Park, using the designated hitter rule. The series was originally to be played in Toronto, but the G20 Summit forced the series to move. This also has the side effect of making the Blue Jays the home team.

While the sample size of three games in one city may be small, asking the Philly fans what they think about seeing AL rules for a few games each season may help to direct where interleague play goes to from here. Series like the Freeway Series and the Subway Series are always going to be exciting, but there’s not enough in those and the handful of other rivalries to keep all of baseball interested. Too many teams don’t have natural rivals. It’s time MLB did something to revamp interleague play or get rid of it altogether and make the World Series that much more special once again.