Long ago, World Series matchups were pretty basic and not too hard to predict. The best team in the National League would play a seven-game series against the team with the best record from the American League. There is a very romantic simplicity with such a playoff structure, in my opinion. With this structure, there could hardly be any bickering amongst Phillies and Mets fans, for example. If one team finished with more wins than the other, that team was simply the better team that year, and would be rewarded with a ticket to the ultimate showdown.
Times have changed. The winners of all six divisions now get into the first round of the playoffs, and one runner-up team from each league also makes the cut. Perhaps this feature, known as the “Wild Card” playoff berth, was introduced so the Red Sox, a team that has long been statistically inferior to the Yankees, could finally experience baseball in October. Calm down, everyone.
I enjoy watching the Super Bowl as much as the next guy, but there’s nothing greater in the world of sports than the playoff structure of Major League Baseball. The season’s outcome doesn’t come down to the result of just one game. This is essential in a sport where a great pitcher can get creamed one day because he “didn’t have his stuff” that afternoon, or the weather wasn’t ideal or the home plate umpire was bribed before the game. Calm down, Joe West.
Now, I believe that any team could win the World Series. All it takes to succeed in October is going on a hot streak for a few weeks. The Kansas City Royals, Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles, all abysmally bad teams this year, have put together some impressive stretches throughout the regular season, like winning two games in a row. Awful teams are more than capable of putting a string of wins together and going on a tear for a short period of time. That’s all that it takes to win the playoffs. And although every team in the playoffs has clearly put together a decent enough season, stud-tastic records are not a requisite.
The inevitable existence of weak divisions and Wild Card berths mean that some teams will enter the postseason with worse records than other teams that have to watch the playoffs from at home. For example, as I write this, the Detroit Tigers are leading the AL Central Division with an 83-71 record. So, if the season were to end today, the Tigers would be guaranteed a spot in the playoffs, but the Texas Rangers, with a superior 85-69 record in a much stronger division, would not.
Another eye opener: with 81 wins thus far, the Minnesota Twins are trailing the Tigers by a slim margin of two games in the AL Central. But in the Wild Card division, a bracket supposedly reserved for runners-up (and therefore a step below the overall division winners), the Twins are a whopping 10 games back. The heck?
In 2002, the San Francisco Giants faced the Anaheim Angels in the World Series. Both clubs had entered the playoffs as Wild Card teams, so they had to take down the divisional winners along the way. Like I said earlier, any team can go on a tear and whip off 11 wins in a row. These are Major Leaguers, after all.
That’s the beauty of the baseball playoffs. So many teams are given a shot, and miracles truly can happen. Teams like the Yankees of the late 90’s can put together record-setting seasons and continue their dominance through the postseason, but it’s not uncommon to see far less superior teams accumulate October wins in the blink of an eye. The Saint Louis Cardinals, my beloved hometown team, became World Champions in 2006 with a very mediocre 83-78 record. The 2003 Wild Card Florida Marlins, who finished 10 games behind the Atlanta Braves in the NL East, took down a powerhouse New York Yankees club in the Fall Classic. For heaven’s sake, in 2006, the Twins took over first place and won the AL Central on the last day of the regular season. They hadn’t been in first place for a single day all season until then. Calm down, Tigers fans.
The MLB playoffs go on for weeks. The games are scheduled so that every one of them can be televised nationally, even when multiple games need to be played in one day. This means that there will usually be a noontime playoff game, late afternoon game, and evening game played during the first round. In high school, this left me scrambling down the halls, begging teachers with free periods to put the games up on their TVs just for me. Evenings at my house were dominated by the severe mood swings I’d inevitably experience as a result of each game’s progression.
Fans have been fortunate enough to see so many dramatic postseason moments in the last decade or so. Joe Carter, Aaron Boone, Edgar Renteria, David Ortiz, Albert Pujols, Magglio Ordoñez, Endy Chavez, Kirby Puckett, Derek Jeter, Brad Ausmus and Luis freaking Gonzalez, to name a few.
Who’s going to make it happen this year? You’ll have to watch to find out. But you must prepare for the adventure of watching a playoff game. Get your homework done first, because there’s no way you’ll be able to work after the game, regardless of how your team does. Tell your significant other that no matter what happens on screen and no matter what kind of mood you’re in throughout the game, you still care about him/her and will be back to your normal self in a few hours, days or weeks. Stock your refrigerator with snacks, because you won’t be leaving your room for hours.
Lastly, if you can score a ticket to an actual postseason game, go! This bit of advice is particularly relevant if you can go to a Yankees game. There’s nothing quite like seeing a team win the World Series.
Calm down, New England.