"Thirteen years and six days ago, former Giants manager Dusty Baker set aside his traditionalist viewpoint and wrote the name Glenallen Hill on his lineup card under at designated hitter. The Giants' visit to Arlington to face the Rangers was the first time in about a century of playing baseball that a manager for a National League team had done that in a regular-season game. Starting tonight at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx, the Mets and Yankees will play the fourth game of their annual six-game season series — after the Mets won two of three last month. Fourteen years ago, that would have seemed like a ridiculous statement. Now, the amazement lies in the fact of how fast something so foreign can become quickly ingrained as bedrock of the sport's landscape. "I do know that interleague play, as far as the Mets and Yankees, is here to stay for a while," said Ron Darling, the SNY broadcaster who played for the Mets before interleague play. "I think any backlash would come from taking away something that has become innately part of the game. I think the Mets and Yanks six times a year is part of normalcy. Anything else, at this point, would be abnormal."" http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/yankees/mets_yanks_has_become_part_of_baseball_vJYwFwVB5FAkW9jRORC8AJ
