Unintended Consequences

I will be the first to admit that I was against the idea of a wild card team, period. It seemed to me to fatally undermine the great accomplishment of winning the Long Season.

If the purity of the World Series had already been diluted since the instigation of league championships in 1969, well, at least every team in the playoffs had to finish first in something over baseball's 162-game schedule, unmatched in any league and any sport, anywhere in the world.

Even if it meant expanding, I wanted to have first-place teams only, in the postseason.

Well, the wild card put paid to that. It also enabled Boston to have its infamous second crack at us back in 2004, leading to the worst single moment in Yankees history. But I have to admit, it did keep a lot more teams in contention most years, including us, and created a sort of secondary pennant race.

Of course, the infamous corporate creation known as "MLB" could never leave well enough alone. One wild card worked out? Why, how about two?

On the surface, it didn't seem like such a bad idea. While a special, single wild-card game might signify nothing in and of itself, it at least penalized whoever won enough to give a real boost to finishing first.

But now, here in our seventh season of the double wild card, we see what it has led to:  the NBA-ization of the major leagues.

Right now, in the American League, at least, over half the teams are tanking, looking to get so low they can't help but get better. (It's little better in the senior circuit.) Those teams that are left in contention, meanwhile, will likely spend the rest of the season cakewalking home, gearing everything toward preparing for the playoffs which—as in the NBA, and the NHL, are the "real" season.

The only thing resembling a race right now is whether Seattle or Oakland will win out for that precious, second wild card spot. If the Yankees' bullpen continues to perform its Daring Young Men on the Flying Trapeze Act, this may change in a hurry.

But even so, 9 teams in the league, including the whole of the AL Central after Cleveland, will be looking to get down, get way down, and maybe cause a little mischief here and there.  Wreck a contender's pitching staff, cause an injury, etc.

Almost from the beginning, the big four of the league, Boston, Houston, the Indians, and the Yankees, have sprinted away from everyone else, in the classic style of the Warriors, the LeBrons, Houston, Boston, etc., over in hoopland.

This is probably fine with "MLB," which has for many years considered the NBA to be its role model, right down to grandiose plans to expand on a global scale, and the elevation of marketing above all. But it makes for bad baseball, and waning fan interest.

"Come see us three-to-five years from now, when we're back," much of the sport now says to its fans, a sort of prison-term advertising.  "Forget all this crap, the season starts in October," even the contenders have to say.

Hey, I'll be as thrilled as anyone if, say, the Yankees get all their guys back, brush off months of erratic, sloppy play, and somehow ruin the Boston Pilgrims' season in a best-of-five series. But that won't tell us a damned thing about what the best team was this year.

It will, instead, be an NBA finish, decided by who's hot and who's not, whose injuries hit early, and whose hit late.

And of course, what will be MLB's answer to this? Why, another wild card, I'm sure, and then another...