Congratulations to the Houston Astros. In the National League Championship Series, they played better baseball than the Cardinals. They got the clutch hits and had superior pitching overall. The World Series will be a good competition with the White Sox.
That said, though, I still maintain that the whole wild card thing is patently unfair. During the regular season, the Cardinals won 11 more games than Houston — a team in their own division — and won 11 of 16 games in head-to-head competition. The idea that they should have to play them again in the postseason is ridiculous. It’s like having the gold and silver medalists in the Olympics play each other to see who really gets the gold medal. Why should a team get a second chance? I felt the same way about New York having to play Boston last year (before Boston beat the Cardinals). It just didn’t seem fair that New York, after beating the Red Sox in the regular season, had to play a short series against them again.
A while back, I read a book by Bob Costas called Fair Ball, and he had what I thought was an excellent suggestion. If there must be three divisions, you can still have two rounds of playoffs without a wild card. You give the division winner with the best record a bye for the first round. Have the other two division winners play each other in a best-of-5 series. The winner of that contest faces the team with the best record in a best-of-7 series. The winner of that contest goes to the World Series. That would be much fairer and would reward regular season performance instead of marginalizing it.
Finally, I close out my comments on the Cardinals’ season without mentioning Albert Pujols’ home run in Game Five. That was the most exciting and dramatic home run I’ve ever witnessed. It doesn’t matter whether they won or lost the NLCS — that was a moment for the history books. It allowed the Cardinals to play one more time in St. Louis before the old stadium was torn down, and it showed that the Cardinals are a competitive team that doesn’t go down without a fight. And it showed what a talented and classy player Pujols is.
Farewell, Busch Stadium. See you next year in your new home.