Baseball dodges a bullet

Baseball has a true world champion again this year. It almost didn't.

The game dodged the bullet posed by the presence in the World Series of yet another team not even good enough to win its own division over the long haul of the season, yet allowed to presumptuously contest the championship of all of baseball. And this time, the integrity of the game won out.

I've figured all along that the American League team- either Boston or Cleveland- would clean the floor with the whatever National League team made it to the Series, simply because both teams are so much better than any of the playoff teams from the Senior Circuit. What wound up happening is only further proof that even a lesser team that gets as very hot for so very long as the Colorado Rockies did cannot, in the last analysis, stand up to a truly deserving world champion that relies on talent rather than luck.

Hats off to the Red Sox- though after winning World Series two of the past four years, at this point they've pretty much forfeited this Cub fan's special sympathy as fellow sufferer.

Comments

Jeff D said…
I like the wildcard concept, for the simple fact that the second place team in one division could easily be better than the first place team in another division. Why should they be excluded from the playoffs in favor of a team less-deserving?

Having said that, I don't know why the wildcard round is best of 5.
Sorry, but I don't see that as an argument for the wild card. What if the third place team is also better than the winner of another division? The fourth place team? Determining such things is what the regular season is all about- and no short series is as good as the regular season in doing so.

I do see it as an argument- and a good one- against divisions. I don't care how many teams there are in each league. I still don't see any congent reason not to have each of them play each other team in the league an equal number of times, and thus determne what team goes on to the World Series.

Best-of-five series are meaningless. Any post-season series- including divisional ones, if they must be played- should be best-of seven at the very least. Best-of-five is little more than a coin flip if the teams are at all competitive.

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