Playoffs gone wild: Division titlists penalized
Posted 8/15/2006 2:03 AM ET
In his perfect baseball world, Bud Selig would be invited to Capitol Hill to testify about the wonders of the wild card. No congressmen would press the commissioner about trivial matters involving chemically altered sluggers and their long-balling brand of consumer fraud.
Under oath, the politicians would ask Selig to explain how he injected the national pastime with a healthy dose of postseason hope.
The wild card has been a godsend for Selig, helping fill his stadiums at record levels and deflecting attention from the performance-enhancing plague. In the context of Selig's legacy, the wild card is in first place on the good side of his scorecard, with the World Baseball Classic claiming, well, the wild card.
Many fan bases that would have been cooked before their Fourth of July barbecues are now allowed to dream the impossible late-summer dream. This leads to bigger crowds, higher stakes and worthy September drama to counter the all-engulfing monstrosity that is the NFL.
But today's positively mad National League race for the ultimate consolation prize has thrown a spotlight on a flaw in the postseason system. Wild cards have it too easy in October. It's high time to punish them for spending a six-month season playing for second place.
Wild cards should get one home game in the five-game Division Series, and one only. Make it the first game so they don't feel unwashed and unwanted, then send them off to play a four-game series at the home of a team that actually won something during the regular season.
Otherwise, dominant teams such as this year's Mets will enjoy almost no advantage for winning, say, 17 more games than the first-round opponent. The Mets could clear 100 victories in a lousy league and end up sharing a five-night date with Roger Clemens, Roy Oswalt and Andy Pettitte, with two dates booked for Houston.
"I always thought the first round should be seven games," Mets GM Omar Minaya said.
Only Selig doesn't want his World Series winner parading under a snowstorm instead of a ticker-tape rain. The first round will stay at five, so other measures need to be taken to enhance the value of a division title while allowing runner-up markets to bask in wild-card possibilities.
Stripping a home playoff game from the best of the rest would be a fine place to start.
"We've talked a lot about that," Selig said Monday. "It's a suggestion some general managers have made. At the moment, I want to leave it as is, but in the offseason we'll look at it again."
Five wild cards have appeared in the last four World Series, with three taking the champagne bath. It's not hard to figure out why. Division leaders always have a fallback plan. But those strictly in the wild-card race are playing life-and-death games through the back end of September, making for dangerous postseason foes.
"You have the adrenaline flowing much more than the teams that clinched early," Minaya said. "You also feel like you're playing with house money, and that gives you confidence."
Wild cards also enter the postseason knowing baseball is governed by a simple rule: Regardless of site or seed, the team with the best pitcher is the team that wins. A visiting football team is more likely to be undone by a frozen playoff tundra, and a visiting basketball team is more likely to suffer the playoff consequences of an angry, suffocating crowd influencing an official's call.
So the lower baseball seed negotiates October on something of a level field. "But it's not like our wild card is some sort of poor relation that doesn't deserve to be there," Selig said.
Baseball allows eight of 30 teams (26.7%) into the playoffs; the NFL allows 12 of 32 (37.5%). The NHL allows an absurd 16 of 30 (53.3%), while the NBA lets in everyone but the Knicks.
So Selig was right when he established one wild card per league for the 1995 season; far too many teams were being eliminated far too soon. "And now the sport is having another amazing year," he said.
Selig predicted this year's attendance total would break last year's record of nearly 75 million, and, yes, the wild card has helped. But with everybody and their sub-.500 brothers scrambling to seize that backup NL bid, baseball should ensure that future 102-win seasons are worth the blood, sweat and tears. "We'll consider it," Selig said.
The commissioner should consider punishing those who settle for second best and letting the Division Series honor the division champ.
***
Ian O'Connor also writes for The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News
Originally Posted by redsmetz
