The number of playoffs slots is really irrelevant to me -- though, I recognize that it benefits a team like the Reds to have more opportunities to make the post-season (since their payroll limitations will reduce the odds of them producing league-best win totals on a yearly basis).
I do view baseball and football (and all other sports, really) the same way in this regard: the goal of the sport is to win a Championship. Anything less is failure, and trying to spin it any other way, to me, reeks of "participation ribbon" mentality.
Cincinnati Reds: Farm System Champions 2022
That's fine, but denying the system the sport has accepted to declare its champion does not mean the system or the champion do not exist. The reality is they don't hand out trophies for the Big 162, and the reason everyone plays the game and the reason the vast majority watch is to raise that trophy. You can pretend it doesn't matter, but that's being pretty naive.
I don't feel the need to cling to a round robin tournament as the sole indicator of who is the best baseball team.
The press surrounding the playoffs and world series implies that the whole season is a useless exercise, I find that silly. Best in the game has historically been about who compiles the best record over six months.
I believe that myself, and I while I want my team to win the World Series I don't downgrade my feelings on the season by the fact that the Reds had a bad five game series, IE I don't mope, I don't curse baseball, I don't turn to football for solace, I don't stop watching baseball I don't bemoan how unfair the game is, because it is unfair.
Just like life
Sure, but the fact that the Giants won 103 games in 1993 and didn't get in the playoffs was also kind of sad.
I watch a LOT of hockey, I love the NHL playoffs, it makes folks forget awesome 118 point seasons, players get to lift the cup... I get all that but I can't watch any sport for 6 months and not let some things slide, nor can I watch a sport for six months and feel anger when it doesn't fall into my lap like I want it to.
Part of the slide in the interest in the World Series has to do with the move to cable television.
Despite the assumption that "everyone has cable or satellite now," I think it still has affected the number of people watching the games. It is surprising the number of households that were affected by the recent changeover from analog to digital TV - far more households than you might expect. My own parents have no desire to pay for cable or satellite TV, and stick with basic over-the-air channels.
The general move to cable has hurt baseball. Football is still available (Saturdays and Sundays) to anyone regardless of whether they have cable or not.
I also tend to think the more post-season teams allowed, waters down the true championship game. The winner-take-all should not be a team who barely got in to the post-season and then suddenly got hot and started playing well against superior teams. If they want to go to the final game, try beating these superior teams during the season.
I liked the old days, where the post season was the East first place team versus the West first place team, and the winner went to the World Series to face the winner of the other league's division playoff..
“I think I throw the ball as hard as anyone. The ball just doesn't get there as fast.” — Eddie Bane
“We know we're better than this ... but we can't prove it.” — Tony Gwynn
The reason they play the game is because it makes a lot of money. And while it's great to be a fan of the team lifting the trophy at the end of the year, it's also pretty obvious the method for determining that champion jumped the shark a long time ago.
As a Reds fan, this season was great. I'd take another 10 just like it. Odds are the team wins a World Series or two if that happens, but that's got a lot less to do with ability and a lot more to do with the roulette wheel stopping on your number.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
I liked that format too, though it was only in place from 1985-93. The LCSes were best-of-5 from 1969-84.
Unfortunately we won't be going back. Yet I'd still like to see the team with the best record in each league get some sort of reward, either nothing but home games in the playoffs or the top overall pick or the ability to pick a player out of another organization (maybe all the other teams in the league get to protect 10 players/prospects and then the champion gets to select out of the who's left).
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Cincinnati Reds: Farm System Champions 2022
Cincinnati Reds: Farm System Champions 2022
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