KANSAS CITY — The Subway Series will be diminished when baseball’s new schedule format kicks off next year.
Michael Weiner, the executive director of the Players Association, said yesterday that baseball’s “natural rivalries” — Yankees-Mets, Cubs-White Sox, Angels-Dodgers and others — will be minimized as a byproduct of the Astros switching from the NL Central to the AL West.
Instead of six Yankees-Mets games annually, there will now be a three-year schedule cycle which will feature three or four games the first two years followed by six or seven the third year.
In an effort to create equal “identity of opponents,” Weiner said, the players and teams have agreed to the following parameters:
1. Each year, one AL division will be matched with an NL division, and every team from the two divisions will play each other for three or four games. That principle had been abandoned in recent years, with teams from the same division playing wildly different interleague schedules.
2. The natural rivals will play each other annually either in a three-game series at one locale or in a pair of two-game series, with both teams getting a brief home series.
3. When the AL East plays the NL East, the Yankees and Mets will play three games as part of that alignment as well as their three or four natural rivalry contests.
* Appearing in his final All-Star Game, Chipper Jones of the Braves got a standing ovation from the fans in Kansas City when he came to bat in the sixth inning. The cheers continued after Jones grounded a single through the hole into right field off Chris Sale of the White Sox.
Before the game, NL manager Tony La Russa suggested Jones adress the team.
“We’ve won two. Win three, and that’s a winning streak,” Jones told the NL squad. “We have an opportunity to do that tonight. And I am not going out losing my last one. So, you with me?”
* Good news for the Yankees, as CC Sabathia (groin injury) came through his bullpen session yesterday in good shape.
“No problems, I felt good, so go from there,’’ Sabathia said. , noting he will have a simulated game Friday and a bullpen session in between and start Tuesday at Yankee Stadium vs. Toronto. “I’ll be ready. My arm feels great.’’