My guess is that you think this is an open letter to the Major League Baseball Officials and Umpires, but it’s not. It’s to you, the cynical fans out there (like me) who thought that the second wild card team was utterly and ridiculously stupid and terribly-flawed idea.
WE WERE WRONG!
My biggest fear with the Wild Card to begin with was that it would water down the play, but we’ve seen so many wild card teams win the World Series now that it’s easy to see that the BEST TEAM for 162 isn’t the best team when the chips are on the table and it’s all on the line.
The additional playoff spot saved the Rangers and their fans from having to endure one of the most EPIC collapses in MLB history, up five games with eight games left to play, and now after Friday night’s game against the Orioles … the offseason plans are now in full effect in Arlington.
Without the extra playoff spot the Cardinals wouldn’t have been in last night’s game to allow the umpires to make a bad call. And before you or I, or anyone else gets all excited … umps make bad calls all the time, and they also make a lot of great calls that you or I wouldn’t be able to do in the heat of the moment at game speed so remember to breathe and remind yourself this isn’t the NFL… MLB officials do the job right!
As a lifelong Pirates fan I had hope this year until the end of August. That’s longer than I’ve had hope since 1992, or roughly five years before my 15-year-old son was even born. That’s right. All of you who are under 20-years-old might not believe it, but it’s true. The Pirates weren’t always bad.
There was drama in the AL East to see who would win the division up to the last day. The divisional race was not quite as dramatic in the central, but was tightly contested until the final week before number two became number one, and the White Sox were left at home. As for the AL West, that was what makes legends. That was simply outstanding baseball — unless you’re a Rangers fan.
The NL East wasn’t that much of a race, but as the Strasburg situation unfolded and the team continued to win and actually draw fans for a change, they kept it interesting. The Braves won 94 games and had to settle for second. Thanks to the wild card system we were able to see Chipper Jones one more time, and the nation got to say good bye to him together on Friday night.
All of that thanks to some bad umpire calls? No, hardly, it was due to the Cardinals outplaying the Braves. Speaking of St. Louis, the Cards were tenacious yesterday, and came out of nowhere to win the second wild card away from the Pirates, who folded and the Dodgers, who couldn’t buy it. That’s what the baseball playoffs should be all about.
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Brad, you make the best possible argument for the wild card, but I could not disagree more. After the Friday debacles, I hate the new wild card more than ever before.
The AL race was extremely entertaining, but we would have had Texas/Baltimore anyway due to the tie in the standings.
The NL game is why I hate the new wild card. Atlanta was six games better than St. Louis during the season. But to get into the playoffs after being obviously better than St. Louis during the season, they have to win a manufactured game 163 just to get in? And then, in addition to having an off day and having St. Louis play well, there is a highly questionable call that contributes to their loss.
When you play 162 games to determine who is better and who advances to postseason, it should not be destroyed by one game marred with a bad call. There are other ways to ensure winning the division is a priority and the wild card teams will have a tougher road to the Series. Make them play all five round one games on the road. Or at least make it a 2 out of 3 play in series.
Glad your Pirates were relevant. I really am. I like Pittsburgh. Interesting city, great sports town. But mediocre teams that lose two-thirds of their games in the second half of the season don’t deserve to be in playoff contention at the end. I despise the money grab that is the wild card expansion almost to the same degree that I hate the All Star Game determining which team gets homefield advantage in the World Series.
Andy,
I 100% understand where you are coming from, but professional sports are all about the dollar, and have been for about as long as they’ve existed. If it weren’t about that then the BLACK SOX scandal would never have happened. Ty Cobb would never have blackmailed the league, and Honus Wagner’s baseball card wouldn’t be worth as much as it is. Even though the popular myth is that he didn’t want his name associated with Tobacco the truth is he didn’t want a free advertisement for it. He wanted money… more money than the Tabacco company wanted to give and thus his card was discontinued, and a multi million dollar lottery was born in every attic in America.
The more attention the game gets, the more money it makes. That has been the NFL way for a long time, but apparently no one seems to care when that game goes for the cash grab.
Money is a means to an end, but that doesn’t mean that magic cannot happen along the way.
Blaming the umps is an easy way out on Friday night’s game. Blaming the 3 errors the Braves made to choke that game away is a better way. Blaming every baseball fan’s favorite whipping boy Bud Selig for trying to increase revenue is like blaming Target for putting an ad in the paper, or Lexus for their disgusting Christmas commercials. It’s simply a sad aspect of reality. Longing for a time when everything was simpler and more Laura Ingles Wilder is great… except… Laura made a boat load off of her books, and her family still does. And the show which was “loosely” created around it was as much fiction as Doctor Who and The Nightmare Before Christmas which I love both. We just want to hold baseball in a more romantic light. God knows I do, but the fact is that greed has been the number one factor in business and in sport and sport as business since the first person got paid to play, and the first team got paid to advertise. By my calculations that goes back to the Roman Gladiators who use to advertise for local products about 2500 years ago or more. There is also a great possibility that in a game where the Aztecs combined hacky sack, soccer and the Gladiator games… those people were treated as gods by the locals and given free stuff for being on the winning teams… considering the losing team was almost always executed. Seems meer survival wouldn’t be enough to motivate a player to play such a sport.
I’m not such a pollyanna that I’m not aware of what you’re saying. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.
My main issue is with the one-game nature of it. I don’t blame the umps for the Braves losing the game to the Cardinals. It played a role, but so did Atlanta’s bad defense that night.
But that’s exactly to my point — when you play 162 games to determine who gets to the playoffs, and you are several games better than the next opponent, you shouldn’t be able to lose the ground you’ve made over that other team over six months in one bad night.
The Braves never should have been put in that position in the first place.
sorry for the multiple comments on this, but something is up with my laptop freezing on my long winded diatribes.
The fact of the matter is that while the one game playoff format is a failure… the concept of another wildcard team appears at second glance (because at first glance I and most others I’d imagine agree with you that it’s a bad idea and a cash grab) to be a brilliant move for the game. Now it needs to be refined, and tinkered with to make it acceptable. I’m all for the idea of tinkering, and changing. I want to see things improve. I don’t think we can go back to the Ted Williams or Babe Ruth eras, and I know I don’t want to go back to the Mark McGwire/Sammy Steroid era. But then again I’ve always been a strange duck that doesn’t mind change most of the time. I’ve had it forced upon me many times, and I’ve learned through blood and violence that it’s better to just accept it and find the positives than hang on to a yesterday that can’t come back and is often romantacized more than it should probably be deserved. And I admit to being guilty of that as much as anyone as well. So this is not meant to be as scathing as it may appear.
I just think that what the extra team did for the month of September… the first month of FOOTBALL was outstanding because it made BASEBALL more of a topic, and more important and kept it as an option for more and more fans. And even if I’m dead wrong and it’s a horrible failure… the sad fact that most people love a trainwreck will be enough to capitalize on if done properly. I’m not sure BUD is our boy when it comes to capitalizing on a trainwreck because of the All Star Tie, and some of his other massive blunders, but giving credit where credit is due… the wild card and interleague play have been huge boons for the game, and are amazingly fun for me personally as we’ve grown up here in an American League city… we had to travel to see a Cubs game so we could experience National League ball. Now thanks to Bud’s money grab… I’ve seen 24-25 teams play here in Minnesota… imagine what it would have been like to get to see Clemente, Mays, Musial, Gwynn, Sandberg, and so many others who spent their entire careers in the NL only and vice versa for fans from other eras.
Sure it’s about the money, but sometimes money does trickle down in a positive way… sometimes it buys happiness. It’s a lousy economic theory, and it’s horribly unromantic, but to prove my point… surprise your wife with a trip to her favorite place to go out to eat and see how much that will benefit you in the short term and the long term even if it’s a bit spendy.
I hate to get political with this especially when it’s going to be more controversial in nature, but it’s the best example I can think of so for people who politically disagree with me I apologize in advance for upsetting you. I don’t apologize for my views however.
Think of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. When it was originally put out there it was a huge huge huge step in the right direction of equality for homosexuals in the military. A decade later it was considered prehistoric and almsot barbaric by a lot of liberals, and the next step was taken to proceed in that level of equality for all people who serve. In the end Clinton’s bold step looks like a half assed caving in…
In this case I think that Bud Selig had a brilliant idea to increase the revenue, and the excitement of the game, but I agree a one game playoff is a failure of sorts, but he based it off of the excitement of a game 163. I believe that it will get tweaked, and it will be made better. My god, that sounds like I’m an optimist and that I don’t hate Selig, which I think both are far from the truth, but I for one will never complain about MORE baseball. Nor will I be against the idea of more hope for anyone.
I think it will be moved to a traditional 3 game series probably by next season, and certainly within the next few years, but teams have to bring their A game when it’s all on the line. Being forced to put it on the line sucks, but without that what’s the point of winning anything anyways? The NFL uses a one game playoff format throughout, and an injury, or a fluke play can destroy a season. I realize 16 games and 17 weeks compared to an eternity of baseball at 162 games is apples to bricks, but I see this as a first step of progress. It’s a trip, a missed step, a stumble, a bumble, and a Delmon Young left field adventure, but the ball was caught no matter how ugly it was, and I chose to write from the positive stand point.
I’m not fully disagreeing with you. Remember this is Selig we are talking about. He cannot do anything 100% correct… even his accomplishments have some sort of failure flavor to them.
Andy, my dear friend… if I thought you were in any way shape or form a Pollyanna… Tony and I would have beaten you mercilessly when you were younger. Also if I were as much as a hardass as I can appear… you and Tony would have disowned me and disavowed any knowledge of me decades ago (like you probably should have, lol).
The premise of another wild card team is great, but the one game situation ends up looking like some kind of joke. At least make it like a season series where you play someone three times.
On the ump issue, I think the Braves should have won that protest. While infield fly is a judgement call, you simply cannot call it that late and by rule it is called near the peak height if the popup, not ten feet from the ground like he did. When they huddled together they should have fixed it right there.