Selig's Outrageous Phillies Mistake

This story came out today, and to me, it is simply outrageous.

The Philadelphia Phillies were scheduled to play the Toronto Blue Jays in inter-league play from June 25-27th in Toronto. It was going to be an exciting homecoming for Roy Halladay to the team where he really started his career. The G20 summit was, in an unfortunate coincidence, scheduled for that weekend in Toronto. The G20 generally draws a lot of protesters and, in the interested of player safety, Bud Selig and the MLB decided that the game needed to be moved from Toronto. A respectable move, because player safety is crucial. But the league decided to move it to Philadelphia. Please...

Moving this 3 game series to Philadelphia gives the Phillies, defending NL Champions two years in a row, 84 home games to everyone else in the NL East's 81 home games. The best team in the NL for 2 consecutive years does not need this kind of help. What is preventing MLB from moving this game to, I don't know, ANY other ballpark in the country? Why not Olympic Stadium in Montreal? At least then it's still in Canada!

This, of course, would happen in a year where the Washington Nationals start to compete as a real baseball team. They're putting up fights against the NL East teams and has taken at least one series from every team in the division except for the Phils. This just gives an incomprehensible advantage to the team in the NL that needs it least of all. And quite frankly, if the Washington Nationals got this advantage, I'd be just as outraged. It's just not right.

So Bud, you said in a statement, "After reviewing all of the options with the parties and taking all of the security considerations into account, it was determined that the best course of action is to play the series in Philadelphia. I appreciate the cooperation of the Blue Jays, the Phillies and all of the parties who have helped resolve this challenging situation." While you're conceding that the Jays will bat last and that there will be a DH, you obviously didn't consult any owners or GMs of the NL East teams. These inter-league games are basically irrelevant to both of these teams, meanwhile the rest of the NL East is getting screwed with their pants on.

Time for the league to man up, admit this is unfair, and move the game to a neutral site.