MLB new Wild Card "Series" is One-and-Done...Yikes
You know me, I love the NBA and NFL big-time, but a definite #1 for me in sports is MLB...That being said I feel like he word "suffer" applies for a hardcore baseball fan to have a...person...like Bud Selig running the show...For the sake of not taking a lot of time on this let's just say I am not a fan of Bud...This whole business of adding an extra Wild Card team is a source of disappointment for me as well
Growing up the MLB Hall Of Fame was THEE H.O.F. and MLB P-Offs were only for the absolute Cream of the Crop...Up to now both the AL and NL send only their 4 best teams to the PostSeason...
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| One-&-Done?!?! This scene never happens |
Now I am not opposed to the concept/notion/idea of adding an extra Wild Card, but the way MLB is going about it upsets me...The idea that the (now) 2 Wild Card teams will play a 1-Game Playoff to advance to the Division Series seems absolutely ludicrous to me...162 Game MLB season, 6 months of MLB baseball, to come down to a 1-Game Playoff...Uhmm, pardon me?!?! I am not following the logic here at all...If you are old enough to remember the Jays back-to-back Playoffs runs then you know what a legit Playoff run is all about (By the way, 1992 Champ Jays lost their first P-Off game, so if this One-and-Done existed then we would not have had the '92 Title)...These days Cardinals fans know what a legit P-Off experience is, BoSox fans know it, Giants fans know it, Phillies too...Yankees fans always know it...A Playoff run in MLB is a SERIES...Heck, the Grand Prize is called the World SERIES...One-and-done should not be in play for MLB...That is NOT a Playoff experience in MLB...It is in NFL, it is in March Madness, but MLB is a 6 month 162 day g-r-i-n-d, and to qualify for PostSeason only to lose right away and it be over seems off to me
I went back through the 2000's World Series Champs...Check this out...
In the Division Series...
2000 Yankees lost Game 1 to A's
2002 Anaheim lost Game 1 to Yanks
2003 Marlins lost Game 1 to Giants
2011 Cardinals lost Game 1 to Phillies
In the Championship Series...
2004 BoSox lost to Yankees
2005 ChiSox lost Game 1 of ALCS to Angels
2006 Cardinals lost Game 1 vs Mets
That is a lot of recent Champs who lost Game 1 of a series...Thankfully One-and-Done was not a threat to them, and for us fans thankfully we were able to watch these teams battle through Playoff SERIES which showed that they were in fact the cream of the crop...1-Game, after 162 Games?!?! Crazy talk IMO...
Does the NBA have teams play a quick game of H-O-R-S-E to allow one to get in the P-Offs, while the other goes home?!?!? Does the NHL allow 2 teams to shoot on the Shooter Tutor?!?! First team to score on all 5 spots is in the P-Offs?!?!
Check out this (extremely possible) scenario...YOUR TORONTO BLUE JAYS qualify for P-Offs as a Wild Card team...The other WC team is Seattle (not likely) or Texas/LAA (very likely)...The Jays P-Off "experience" is a 1-Game event on the West Coast, starts at 10:30pm and ends at 2am...You and I may see it, the kids will not...And what about a 3-run HR by Pujols, then a few batters later Torii goes yard for a 2-run shot...5-0 Angels in the first...Right away the Jays are in huge trouble, likely going to lose, so right away our P-Off experience is dashed...Sound good to anyone?!?! In a 162 Game sched a team uses anywhere from 6-9 Starting P's to get through the grind, in this new format you need just 1?!?!
Agree? Disagree? Something in between? Please feel free to hit me up at craigballard77@myself.com ...On twitter @craigballard77
