I've had a lot of time to think about one of the biggest problems with professional sports (and, increasingly, collegiate sports): the playoff system. I understand why it is in place - do-or-die excitement, more teams involved, more sponsors, and much more money. We live in a shameless cash-grabbing society and I know that sports leagues are not immune from it. And since capitalism reigns, sports leagues have the freedom to do whatever they see fit to maximize the profits. People still pay for tickets and come to the games, which is the only important part when it comes to the bottom line. But that doesn't mean that I still can't complain about it.
What happened to the regular season? It doesn't mean anything anymore. There was a time, many years ago, when it was important. Let's use Major League Baseball as our example here. Up until 1969, the American and National League representatives were simply the winners of their respective leagues. If the Yankees won 103 games and the Red Sox won 100, the Yankees were going to the World Series. It was as simple as that. Baseball is a game played over six months and 162 games. It would seem that that would be ample time to decide which team is better. There were no divisions and no wild-card play-in games or sudden death playoff rounds. The regular season was the defining factor in which team got to play into October.
Admittedly it was easier, at least in baseball, to simply reward the regular season champion in each league with a berth in the World Series before the advent of expansion. When MLB expanded to the West Coast and added the Angels, Senators (Rangers), Colt .45's (Astros), Mets, Royals, Expos (Nationals), Padres, and Pilots (Brewers) in a span of nine seasons, a problem arose as to how all the teams would be fairly represented by one single team emerging from the field at the end of the year. MLB decided to divide each league into two divisions and the winner of each division would play in a League Championship Series. Each division was made up of six teams and still rewarded the WINNER, rather than any second (or third) place team that may have a decent record. Looking back, I'm on board with baseball's playoff system until the Wild Card was introduced in 1995 - that's where we run into problems.
The Wild Card gives a playoff spot to the best team that did not win a division. This Wild Card team has the same access to the World Series that any division winner has, and upsets are not uncommon. In 2005, for example, the Houston Astros finished 11 GAMES behind the Cardinals in their division. For their distant second place finish, the Astros were able to get hot at the right time and advance to the World Series, dispatching the Cardinals along the way. Things like this should not happen! The Cardinals should not have been defeated by an inferior team, especially an inferior team that they had beaten quite thoroughly throughout the year.
We can even look at last year's playoffs. The Phillies won 102 games. They were light years ahead of every other team in the National League and were poised to get back to the World Series. They were a team built for dominance and they had flexed their baseball muscles throughout the entire regular season. Their prize for playing so well for so long? A meeting with the Cardinals, a team that had gone 18-8 in the last month of the season and were riding a hot streak. Even with that incredible September record, however, they finished six full games behind the Brewers, which goes to show how much they under-performed during the other five months of the regular season. The Phillies, with their spectacular regular season and team built the right way for the long haul, were beaten in five games. 162 games, coming down to five. It doesn't make sense to me.
Sportscasters and talking heads crow on and on about the fairness of the game. How can one team make the playoffs, for example, and another team be left home when they didn't play the same schedule? The Tigers got to play the lowly Pirates six times in interleague play, and the Indians had to play the mighty Reds. Those games must have been the difference between the Tigers and the Indians representing the AL Central Division in the playoffs. But if we're going to talk about fairness, what about a team that plays all of their games against a certain opponent early in the year? The Tigers were done with all of their games against the Mariners this year before June. How could it be fair that the Tigers had to face Felix Hernandez twice in those six games, and he got injured before the White Sox could come to town? Or if the Mariners had made a splashy trade acquisition that the Tigers did not have to face. Doesn't that come into play with the "fairness" factor? Shouldn't those games then be struck from the record book? I mean, all factors weren't the same, so how could those games have any real merit? It's really frustrating for me. This is why there are 162 games in a regular season! There are so many factors that go into winning or losing a baseball game on any given night. Giving a team 162 chances during a calendar year is enough time to separate the winning teams from the losing teams. If the season were 44 games long, I would understand the cries for fairness and a larger playoff system. But it's not...and since when did we get into the habit of rewarding losers?
Even though MLB is further diluting the playoffs this year with an extra wild card (now a third-place team can make the World Series!! A team doesn't even need to finish in the top half of their division!), this is not just a baseball problem. The New York Giants finished 9-7, were outscored during the regular season, got hot at the right time, and won the Super Bowl. Last year, the Grizzlies ran roughshod over the Spurs in the first round of the NBA playoffs, even though they finished a full 15 games (!!!) behind them. Why should the Grizzlies have even been invited to the playoffs? They finished in the bottom half of their conference! Yet they took advantage of a league that invites more than half of its teams to the playoffs, regardless of how they perform in the regular season! What's the point of even playing? Why not just have a tournament? Everybody gets into the playoffs, and everyone has a chance!! Think about the windfall in profits! Who even needs the regular season anymore? It doesn't mean anything anyway. Just ask LSU and Alabama, who met this past season in the BCS National Championship. Alabama beat LSU in the game, claiming the title of the best team in college football, even though they had already lost to LSU earlier in the season! The whole thing doesn't make sense to me.
What are our games becoming? As a sports fan, what is the point of attending regular season games anymore? They don't mean anything. Nothing is decided until the playoffs start anyway. Seat prices go up, commercials become more expensive, and the cash starts rolling in. To be honest, I don't understand why we haven't gone to an all-playoff system yet. The profits would be tremendous. The fans would be happy. The networks would be ecstatic. This is what our sports have become. Fans are fixated on the concept of the underdog, rising up and beating the big man on campus. Fans love the excitement of sudden death, win-or-go-home. Fans love it when teams that can barely win more games than they lose during the regular season can be considered the best team in the land. What does that say for us? We no longer value excellence...just competing is more than enough. Every team should be rewarded, simply because they showed up. Medals for everyone!
I've got 363 more of these...I hope I don't become too bitter...
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