As the baseball season enters its final phase, and before it gives way to the increasing distractions of other sports, I have a suggestion on how to make the post-season more meaningful.
As a disclaimer, I should mention that I came of baseball-fan age in 1951, when Joe DiMaggio was in the process of handing over the prestigious center-field spot to the young "phenom," Mickey Mantle. Obviously, this meant I was used to major league baseball consisting of two leagues of eight teams each. Barring the extremely unusual occurrence of a dead-heat tie for first place--as happened in the National League that year, with (the recently deceased) Bobby Thompson's "home run heard 'round the world--the teams with the best record in their respective leagues would meet each other in the World Series. The season then consisted of 154 games (not counting the one-game playoff in the A.L., or the two-out-of-three in the N.L. as had just taken place between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers), with a best of seven World Series. This, counting the World Series, entailed a season of (at most) 161 games, one less than the current, pre-post-season minimum.
The "October Classic," ended, at the latest, during the first week of October. The Series was all day games, and--if you were lucky enough to have the Jewish High Holy Days arrive "early," that year, young apostates such as I could "observe" by spending them glued to our radios or, television sets. And, yes, it was a kind of worship! (We did not get our first T.V. until 1952, so I was accustomed to hearing my baseball on the radio, something I continued to do on road games, which were rarely televised, for several years.)
Okay, enough history, I hear you say. Here's my proposal, and the justification for it. The best record among the Division leaders currently gets Home field advantage. While that is certainly better than nothing, it is not really a big deal. Clearly, it's scant reward for having the best record in your league. Under current rules, the teams who lead the Eastern, Western and Central divisions are guaranteed a berth in the post-season. The team that has the second-best record in the league (regardless of division) gets a "Wild Card" which gives it the right to be the fourth team in the first round of play-offs--called the "Divisional Series." As has happened all too many times, division winners may find themselves meeting the very team they edged out in their own division after a grueling 162 games (including-gasp-"interleague play") in the League Championship Series ("LCS") and conceivably lose the Pennant to a team that didn't even win its division. If the Yankees, for example, wind up winning the A.L. East, they will have done so after having played both the Rays and Red Sox about nineteen times each. Isn't that enough to relieve them of having to meet these teams again the the ALCS?
In fairness, the second-best team in the league could have (and often does have) a better record than the other two division leaders. This year, for example, the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays (formerly "Devil Rays"), have the two best records in baseball, and, arguably, each has a "right" to be in the playoffs. I don't plan on eliminating the Wild Card, much as it goes against my traditionalist grain. Luddite tendencies apart, I do to recognize that the Wild-Card race keeps seasons exciting when situations where one or more teams dominate their divisions. I can remember seasons in which teams had clinched the Pennant as early as Labor Day. The race for the Wild Card keeps the nail-biting going up to the very end. of the regular season, and this is "good for the game."
While the logic behind the Wild Card recognizes rewarding the second-best record in each of the American and National Leagues, why not provide a similar degree of recognition for the team that leads its league? Under my proposal, the team with the best record in its league would get a "bye" in the Divisional Series, and play the winner of the two (yes, two) best 3 of 5 divisional series in the best of seven LDS. Here's how it would work. Let's assume teams A, B, and C are the division leaders in their leagues, with team A having the best record in the league. I would award two "Wild Cards" to the teams with the two best records in their league (who nonetheless failed to win their division). Call them teams D and E. The Division leader with the stronger record (team B) would play the "Wild Card" team with the weaker record of the Wild-Card teams (team E). The other division leader (team C) would play the stronger of the Wild-Card teams (team D). NB: I am, in each instance, recognizing "also-ran" teams with the better "league" records and balancing them against the divisional leaders, thus preserving the concept of winning one's division.
So, let's assume teams B and E win their first-round DS. They then play another 3 of 5 DS for the right to play the team with the best record in their league(a team that years ago would already have won the pennant) . Let's assume both DS's go the maximum five games, and the LDS goes seven games. Admittedly, that's a possible seventeen games just to get into the World Series. Add that to the 162-game season and you could be looking at 179 games before the World Series--putting us well into November, and not a good thing. My proposed solution would be to revert to the time-honored 154-game schedule (of blessed memory). Now you would have a post-season (for some teams) of up to twenty-three games. With my regular season now ending by, say, September 20th, you'd have plenty of time for the additional round of playoffs. Lest anyone think the league-leaders have a picnic, they would still have a best-of -seven series to win in order to get to the World Series, and, of course, an additional best-of -seven in the Series itself. If they have it somewhat easier than the others, they earned it by being the best in their leagues. The other four teams have to earn the right to play them. So, what do you think, sports fans?
(By the way, if this is deemed to cumbersome, why not abandon the Wild Card entirely, and let the division leaders with the second and third best records play each other in a four out of seven round. The winner of of this DS would then get to play the best team in its league for the pennant. While I prefer this solution, I understand that the Wild Card is here to stay, and have thus proposed the above as the most realistic solution.)
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