SWC75
Bored Historian
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- Aug 26, 2011
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...but it isn't. More people are watching "Hard Knocks" than are watching baseball games. This used to be baseball's equivalent of "March Madness" with teams putting the pedal to the floor to beat each other out for division or league championships so they'd have a chance to play for the championship in the spot season. Teams having great seasons faced the risk of not making it and there was a sense of desperation. There's still a competition between mediocre teams for wild card spots or for titles in the worst divisions. But, other than that one evening a couple years ago when several games were being played at once that mattered and there were a couple of big comebacks, those races simply haven't generated the excitement of the old pennant races.
I remember having an on-line debate with somebody almost a decade ago. I expressed a similar opinion and the other poster pointed out the great series the Yankees and Red Sox had had the previous two years, (the one that ended with the Boone home run and the one where the Sox came back from the 0-3 deficit), and said he didn't know anybody who didn't want to see those two go at it in a seven game series. The American league scheduled the Yankees to end the season with a four game season in Boston and everybody was looking forward to that as a great event. But both teams had clinched a playoff spot and neither cared if they won the division title. They treated those four games like they were spring training games and no one care. Everyone assumed they'd be playing a seven game post season series in a couple week. They didn't and haven't met in the playoffs since.
Under today's rules, the Cardinals and Dodgers would have both been "in" in 1946, the Dodgers and Giants would have been both in in 1951, the Braves and Dodgers would have been both in in 1959, the Yankees and Red Sox would have been both in in 1978, etc. And many other exciting races that were decided in the regular season would have had the excitement drained from them, as well.
Basically, baseball has elected to postpone the drama to October and ceded August and September to football. I think it was a mistake. For 60 years baseball had 16 teams and two fo them played for the title. Now it has 30 teams and ten of them play for the title, including an absurd one game playoff in the first round. teams play 162 games, twice as many as basketball and hockey, ten times as much as football, only to play a one game playoff round to see who gets to play a seven game series and to potentially have a a first place team that spent six months beating out a second place team have to beat them again in the playoffs. Ten of those second place teams have made it to the World Series and five of them have won it. On top of that, the small divisions allow teams like the 2006 Cardinals (83-78) or the 2000 Yankees (87-74) to become champions. In the 60 years mentioned above, the worst team to even make the World Series by record was the 1959 Dodgers, who went 86-68 during the regular season and then swept the braves in a best of 3 playoff for the pennant to push them to 20 games over .500. In the old days you had to have a strong team for 6 months to win a title. Now you just have to be a hot team for a couple of weeks.
Baseball is a sport where superior teams have a hard time dominating inferior teams. They have a batting order: you can get the ball to Jim Brown or Michael Jordan on every possession. they have a pitching rotation and are a different team with each pitcher. And pitchers can be different pitchers, game to game, more so than say, quarterbacks. And you can't overpower the other team: there's no blocking or talking or checking into the boards, no full-court press. That's why the term "upset" is never used. That's also why they play so many games: it takes that long a season to determine who the best teams are. To then let mediocre teams into the playoffs and clutter them up just seems wrong.
Finally you the issue of weather. Baseball is a summer sport. It's not pleasant to play or watch in cold weather. When it was just the World Series, things got decided in the first ten days of the October and weather wasn't a big problem. With four teams in the playoffs, things were being decided in the third week of October but that was still acceptable. With three levels of playoffs and now a (one game) fourth, we are deciding the championship of a summer sport in late October or even November.
Bud Selig is getting some grudging praise for his "achievement" of creating the wild card system and also for inter league play, which has made hamburger out of the regular season schedule. I'm afraid I just can't share the enthusiasm.
I remember having an on-line debate with somebody almost a decade ago. I expressed a similar opinion and the other poster pointed out the great series the Yankees and Red Sox had had the previous two years, (the one that ended with the Boone home run and the one where the Sox came back from the 0-3 deficit), and said he didn't know anybody who didn't want to see those two go at it in a seven game series. The American league scheduled the Yankees to end the season with a four game season in Boston and everybody was looking forward to that as a great event. But both teams had clinched a playoff spot and neither cared if they won the division title. They treated those four games like they were spring training games and no one care. Everyone assumed they'd be playing a seven game post season series in a couple week. They didn't and haven't met in the playoffs since.
Under today's rules, the Cardinals and Dodgers would have both been "in" in 1946, the Dodgers and Giants would have been both in in 1951, the Braves and Dodgers would have been both in in 1959, the Yankees and Red Sox would have been both in in 1978, etc. And many other exciting races that were decided in the regular season would have had the excitement drained from them, as well.
Basically, baseball has elected to postpone the drama to October and ceded August and September to football. I think it was a mistake. For 60 years baseball had 16 teams and two fo them played for the title. Now it has 30 teams and ten of them play for the title, including an absurd one game playoff in the first round. teams play 162 games, twice as many as basketball and hockey, ten times as much as football, only to play a one game playoff round to see who gets to play a seven game series and to potentially have a a first place team that spent six months beating out a second place team have to beat them again in the playoffs. Ten of those second place teams have made it to the World Series and five of them have won it. On top of that, the small divisions allow teams like the 2006 Cardinals (83-78) or the 2000 Yankees (87-74) to become champions. In the 60 years mentioned above, the worst team to even make the World Series by record was the 1959 Dodgers, who went 86-68 during the regular season and then swept the braves in a best of 3 playoff for the pennant to push them to 20 games over .500. In the old days you had to have a strong team for 6 months to win a title. Now you just have to be a hot team for a couple of weeks.
Baseball is a sport where superior teams have a hard time dominating inferior teams. They have a batting order: you can get the ball to Jim Brown or Michael Jordan on every possession. they have a pitching rotation and are a different team with each pitcher. And pitchers can be different pitchers, game to game, more so than say, quarterbacks. And you can't overpower the other team: there's no blocking or talking or checking into the boards, no full-court press. That's why the term "upset" is never used. That's also why they play so many games: it takes that long a season to determine who the best teams are. To then let mediocre teams into the playoffs and clutter them up just seems wrong.
Finally you the issue of weather. Baseball is a summer sport. It's not pleasant to play or watch in cold weather. When it was just the World Series, things got decided in the first ten days of the October and weather wasn't a big problem. With four teams in the playoffs, things were being decided in the third week of October but that was still acceptable. With three levels of playoffs and now a (one game) fourth, we are deciding the championship of a summer sport in late October or even November.
Bud Selig is getting some grudging praise for his "achievement" of creating the wild card system and also for inter league play, which has made hamburger out of the regular season schedule. I'm afraid I just can't share the enthusiasm.
