Here's one way to at least make interleague games matter

They are games on the schedule.

And that's pretty much it.

That's all these contests are to the White Sox and Cubs players forced to endure two weekends of hysteria and hyperbole.

The truth is the two clubs have no interest in each other, but the games are on the schedule, so they play them.

If they could tell the truth -- and the smart ones certainly don't go down that road -- the players, coaches, managers and general managers would tell you precisely that.

They'd say that it's a royal pain in the backside to face the disruption of a regular-season schedule to face playoff-sized media presence and fan interest.

Not that they don't like having their fans on board, but they can get that playing teams within their own division.

What they don't need is the stuff thrown at them verbally and otherwise by the media and fans, before and during these series.

That said, fans in a couple of cities love the games, and that's why the players here don't tell you what they really think.

Outside New York and Chicago, however, these interleague series have little meaning and zero significance, except, of course, that they count in the standings.

But all this indifference is just one more reason why they ought to make interleague play count for something.

It's easy to do: Take the league that wins more games and give them home field in the World Series.

After all, if you're going to make some bizarre, arbitrary decision on how home field is determined for the most important games of the year, perhaps an exhibition game is about the dumbest imaginable way to make that determination.

At least with interleague play, they are actual games, they count in the standings, and it's a big enough sample to at least hint at which league is better, notwithstanding all the odd mismatches and unfair scheduling in a particular season.

Last year, for example, the American League was 22 games over .500 against the National League in interleague play, and fortunately for the Red Sox, the AL managed to win the Midsummer Exhibition Classic, so they also had home field for the World Series.

In 2006, when it appeared the White Sox might go back again to the Fall Classic, AL manager Ozzie Guillen needed a Michael Young triple in the ninth to beat the NL and Trevor Hoffman.

But the AL was a whopping plus-56 vs. the NL in interleague play, yet the NL could have had home field based on a game not even seen by most of the players participating in the World Series.

In 2005, when the White Sox swept Houston in the World Series, maybe it wouldn't have mattered where the series started, but it sure helped playing those first two at home in brutal Chicago weather, when the Astros looked like they'd rather be anywhere else.

That season, the AL barely held on in the All-Star Game and the Sox started the Series in Chicago, but a more honest valuation would have been the interleague record, which had the AL at 20 games over .500.

Let's face it, no amount of tinkering by the commissioner's office is going to make an exhibition game anything but an exhibition game.

And no amount of pretending is going to make these Sox-Cubs games anything more than games on the schedule to the players.

However, you can put some emphasis on the games by telling the players it may decide whether they get home field in the World Series, and that's going to matter to at least half the teams in baseball during the period of interleague play.

Otherwise, we in the media can make all we want out of regular-season games in mid-June, but to the players they're still regular-season games in mid-June -- with the added bonus of having beer spilled on them, and their mothers called names they've not heard since A-ball.

So, at least they've got that going for them, which is nice.