Of course, baseball’s new postseason formula has flaws. But at least there is one, and that beats last October’s alternative.
Also, it still beats the questionable playoff policies in football, basketball and hockey.
What’s fair is fair. When the NFL enters its last regular-season weekend and there are a dozen possibilities for division champions and wild cards, it’s wonderful.
What a great league. What a great sport. What a great world we live in.
But when baseball offers virtually the same scenario, it’s a cheap trick being foisted on an unsuspecting public? Sorry, that won’t fly, even in a year when it is fashionable to bash baseball, an industry in well-deserved turmoil.
More Top Picks Oral Sensory Seeking In Kids Causes And Strategies
That’s the genesis for most of the criticism, anyway. You aren’t hip if you aren’t knocking baseball.
Well, if Sunday’s dramatic events weren’t enough to entertain you, fine. Stick with that stirring prime-time matchup of Raiders vs. Jets. Or, seek out a 3 1/2-hour exhibition hockey game with 12 penalties for obstruction. Better yet, call a friend to debate the merits of the newest Bull, prematurely-orange Dennis Rodman.
But, if you can bear it, give baseball a chance. On Monday, there was a one-game playoff featuring the supposedly dead-and-buried California Angels and Seattle’s up-and-coming Mariners. Mark Langston, who left Seattle so he could play for a winner, against Randy Johnson, the giant for whom Langston was traded to Montreal.
Not a bad story. Not as juicy as the USC football scandal, but not bad.
Then on Tuesday, it will be the new division series at four venues. Only eight teams are involved, so baseball does have some catching up to do. All participating clubs at least have winning records. The Dallas Stars won 17 of 48 games last season, yet they “qualified” for the Stanley Cup playoffs and were considered feisty darlings in doing so.
Is baseball’s better idea the best idea possible? Hardly. Baseball should sit down this winter, maybe even shake hands on a long-term deal between management and labor, then really get creative by instituting interleague play.
The Cubs and White Sox should meet during the summer. So should the Yankees and Mets, the Dodgers and Angels, the Blue Jays and Expos. Old habits are difficult to break, but now is the time. Athletes have become itinerant laborers now. You can’t tell the players without a scorecard. But geographic differences remain the same. Fans are loyal to the uniforms, if not the transients who wear them.
Cleveland, with 100 victories, has the home-field disadvantage against the Red Sox. There is no justice in that prearranged meeting. But, it has happened before, and it has happened to Chicago teams, when they dared to be good enough.
In 1983, the White Sox had a better record than the Orioles, but opened in Baltimore, anyway, and lost a best-of-five series at home. A year later, the Cubs had a better record than the Padres, but opened at Wrigley Field and lost a best-of-five series in San Diego, anyway.
In 1972, the Miami Dolphins went through the Super Bowl with a 17-0 mark. But where did they win the AFC Championship game? In Pittsburgh against the Steelers, who lost four games. You figure it out.
Baseball, for all its faults, got lucky in 1995. Two major markets–New York and Los Angeles–are still alive. Chicago was a factor until the last day of September, about a month later than the Cubs usually check out. America’s other superstation team, the Braves, could win it all while New England, which revels in suffering, is braced for more of less.
It’s all there if you open your eyes. Real baseball, after the dark October of 1994. All games are worth watching, even if the Baseball Network won’t make that possible. Yes, the sport has a lot of work to do, but it is working.