In a couple of hours, the Cardinals will be playing Game 3 of the NLDS against the San Diego Padres at home in St. Louis. Of course, I’m hoping for another sweep, just like the Cardinals have done the last couple of post-season series against the Padres.
I have one beef with the game today — it’s on ESPN2. There are three baseball games being played today, and two of them are on FOX (that station I get). The one I really want to watch is on ESPN2 (not even ESPN — it’s on ESPN2! ESPN has college football). Just another reason to hate the wild-card system that forces this extra round of playoffs that doesn’t bring in enough advertising dollars to put all the games on broadcast television — all so a second-place team can get a second-chance at the post-season.
Well, without the wild-card, the Cardinals wouldn’t be in the playoffs.
Without the wild card, the Cardinals would have been in the World Series last year.
I hate the Padres. They came back and knocked out the Cubs in ’85 by winning three straight after being down 0-2. I may take some heat for saying this, but… Go Cards!
PI,
Sorry, that was 1984. One of my favorite years – I was a huge Steve Garvey fan – what a Game 4 he had.
If you get the chance, watch the documentary on HBO about the Cubs. When the Cub history hits 1984 some guy comes on and says that he can’t stand Garvey and when he hears the guy’s name he gets ill to this day.
I hate the Padres. They came back and knocked out the Cubs in ‘84 by winning three straight after being down 0-2. I may take some heat for saying this, but… Go Cards
uh Brent … without the wildcard the Dodgers & Tigers wouldn’t be in the playoffs. The Twins, A’s, Yanks, Mets, Padres and Cards all won their divisions. Personally I’d go all the way back before the entire playoff system to a time when the best teams for each year met for the World Series. Every time a round of playoffs is added, the owners and players make more money, but the integrity of the game is watered down. The season is too long not to be meaningful.
I took it that Brent was taking a swipe at the Cardinals’ win-loss record; i.e., if there were only two divisions, the Cardinals wouldn’t have won with the record they had. Fair enough. But you can have three divisions and still not have a wild-card. I like Bob Costas’s idea of giving the team with the best regular-season record a bye for the Division Series. There’s no reason to give a second-place team a second-chance after 162 games.
I agree with Murrel. The integrity of the game has really taken a beating, both from players (doping) and MLB (wild card, DH, expansion, home-field advantage decided by All-Star Game, etc.). It’s time to contract and at least go back down to only one round of playoffs… but I know that will never happen for the very reason Murrel gave: money.
There is only two meaningful reasons left in baseball that perserve the integrity, and history of the game. Wrigley Field, and Fenway Park. Go Cubbies. Or as we Cub fans like to say “Wait til next year”.
But even if you give the best team a bye, then you still have the extra round that you were trying to get rid of. The wild card lets in an extra team that is usually more deserving of being in the playoffs then the best team in the worst division. See this year as an example.
Brent — You could have said that when there were only two divisions. It’s possible that the second place team in the East had a better record than the first place team in the West. So, if you think that’s fundamentally unfair, the answer is not the wild card, but to do away with divisions altogether. Just have, as Murrel said, the best teams from each league play each other at the end of the season and forget this playoff garbage.
Take last year as an example — why should the Cardinals (1st place NL Central) have to play Houston (2nd place NL Central, wild card) in the postseason when they beat Houston over the course of 162 games in the regular season? That’s a crock. It really diminishes the value of the regular season. If they want baseball to be more like football, then they should shorten the season to about 50 games and just have each team play each other one series.