#Middlebury #ASportingView #Baseball
By Mark Vasto
I don’t like Major League Baseball’s wild-card game. There, I said it, and it falls trippingly off my tongue.
Baseball has the longest season of all sports in America. For five months – six, if you count spring training – fans watch a story unfold. It’s the beauty of the game, this longevity.
Storylines play out over this half-year season, a season actually made up of three seasons. We watch the rookies make the team in April, and witness the magical month of May, where every team is on equal ground and at its healthiest. We watch them soldier on through the heat of summer, sweat out the pennant races in September, and we tune in to watch the heroics of October.
After all of that time and concession sales, the three division winners secure a playoff spot and the remaining teams get to fight over the scraps, a wild-card game between the next best two teams. They play a one-game playoff and the winner goes against the top seed. And that’s when my record needle scratches.
One game? You just played 162 games in the regular season, and the losing wild card gets to play 163? It makes no sense. I’m not buying into the theory that those teams are just lucky to be there, nor do I like the false equivocation of treating it like it’s the seventh game of a series – because it’s not. Teams play on a baseball diamond, not a baseball cubic zirconia.
One-game playoffs are like kissing your sister. It showcases nothing. During the regular, ordinary time of the season, teams play three game sets. This is not only done for logistical purposes, it is done in order to let the fans see the depth of the respective teams rosters, and that’s why this one-game format fails.
Here’s a simple, temporary fix: Have the teams play best out of three, the higher seed getting home-field advantage for all three games. This eliminates the need for a travel day. Scheduling would be a cinch, too. Just lop three games off of spring training. Broadcast game one on a Saturday night, game two in a day game on Sunday. If both teams win a game, it’s a double header … turn on the lights and break the tie.
Right now, baseball has three divisions of five teams each. Baseball is due for expansion. TV ratings are bad, but the league is flush with cash and in the coming years, as football hemorrhages players due to safety concerns, you’ll see a lot of talent opting to play baseball.
The talent pool will be there. (For the record, I propose a team in Portland, Oregon, and a team in Nashville or Charlotte.) Create another division so you have four divisions of four teams. This once again establishes the thrill of a pennant race, since only division winners get to meet in a five-game series.
Of course, Bob Costas wouldn’t approve of this idea, but he’s not the boss of me. Even in a pastime, the one constant going forward should be change.
Mark Vasto is a veteran sportswriter who lives in New Jersey.
(c) 2017 King Features Synd., Inc.
