I want to say something about the so-called intra-state rivalries.
They do not exist. We just went through Reds-Indians here and I can not think of anybody that cares. In fact, the only non-California inter-league rivalry is SOOOOOOO important that baseball put the Phillies and Pirates in the different divisions. The Indians, a city based team, and the Reds, a regional team located in a "tri-state" area with legitimate claims to regional fans in at least three other states, play one another. So what? Cincinnati isn't even the closest other big league city to Cleveland (Pittsburgh is, and Detroit is closer also). And both those "rust belt" cities have much more in common with Cleveland than Cincinnati does. Some of the two teams' fans have the same color liscense plates. So what.
I also want to talk about the so-called "going home" series. The Braves "return" to Boston. The Braves left Boston as a business failure in 1953, meaning a person would have to be at least 65 to even have a childhood memory of Boston as a two team town. The last team to move before Montreal was Washington to Dallas in 1973. That was thirty years ago, and they don't even do Rangers @ Nationals.
No one cares.
