Football, the baseball commissioner says, used to own September. He suggested that it no longer does, the result of the addition of a second wild card in each league. The month of September has just begun so it would be premature to proclaim Bud Selig correct in his view, but based on what I have seen the past month or six weeks, I think he has a better than even chance to be right.
I say this as an early critic of the wild card. Call me a traditionalist, a dinosaur, short-sighted or anything you want; I’ve been called a lot of things. But I always believed that to get to the post-season, a team needed to finish in first place. Second-placers need not apply.
I grew up in the 16-team world of baseball. Two leagues, eight teams each, the pennant winners playing in the World Series. Clean cut, simple, straight forward. No foolish gimmicks either to determine homefield advantage. The leagues alternated each year in playing the first and last two games at home. I don’t recall having a problem with that pattern, and I don’t recall anyone complaining about it. Now a mid-season exhibition game, the All-Star game, determines homefield advantage, and the gimmick has not interrupted the ratings slide that Fox Sports has suffered with the game.
The wild card could have been considered a gimmick, too, but its creation became necessary when the major leagues went to three divisions in each league. Selig likes to take credit for creating the wild card, but others point out that the majors had no choice once they changed to the three-division alignment. They couldn’t very well have played the post-season with three teams from each league. They needed a fourth, and the wild card was born.
“In September 1993, when I put the wild cards in,” Selig said in a telephone interview, “I received so much criticism. John Harrington was my partner. He kept saying this was going to work.”
With Harrington, the Red Sox managing partner, heading the effort, the owners voted 29-1 to adopt the plan. You might have heard of the lone holdout, fellow named Bush, George Bush, managing partner of the Texas Rangers. His primary objection was not tradition but economic. The plan put the Central time zone Rangers in a division with three Western time zone teams, and Bush believed that set-up would wreak havoc on the team’s television schedule and revenue.
At the time Selig assured critics there would no more wild cards added. I believe he meant it at the time, but liked what he saw and eventually decided, “Well, one more in each league can’t hurt,” considering the number of wild cards and playoff teams the other major professional sports leagues invited to their post-seasons.
“It certainly hasn’t hurt the game in any way,” Selig said. “It has helped.”
Selig wanted the second wild card in each league for two reasons. He believed it would be good economically, attracting more fans late in the season by keeping more teams in the running for playoff spots, and he believed the new format would correct flaws in the existing system.
“It didn’t give enough weight to people who won their division,” Selig said. “I thought about it. When I convened my 14-man committee, I was shocked. Everybody wanted it. I was shocked.” He was also convinced. “No one can say 10 out of 30 teams is too many. I really feel good.”
The commissioner’s has felt even better while watching the wild-card races. One of the major criticisms of the wild card was that it detracted from division races. If a team saw that it was in good position to win the wild card, it wouldn’t necessarily go all out to win the division title, perhaps saving its No. 1 pitcher for the opening playoff game rather having him start the season finale in an attempt to win the division title.
But the new format is better for division winners. The wild cards will play one game for the right to join the division winners in the division series of the playoffs. A team could scratch and claw its way into the post-season as a wild card, then lose one game to the other wild card and be gone. Division winners get to play a three-of-five series.
There is no question that the second wild-card slot has intensified the races. I track the wild-card standings from the All-Star break to the end of the season and, I admit Mr. Commissioner, this season has been more fun to watch than previous seasons. There are games every day that involve wild-card contenders and alter the wild-card standings.
The American League wild-card race has been more mercurial than that in the National. In the N.L. the Braves have led the wild-card standings for 31 days (entering Sunday’s games) after having held second for 20 days. The Braves supplanted the Pirates atop the standings Aug. 3 after the Pirates had led for most of July. The Pirates then held second place for 19 days until the Cardinals passed them Aug. 22.
The defending World Series champion Cardinals, bidding to return to the post-season, have clung to the second wild-card spot for the last 11 days, beginning their Sunday game 2 games behind the Braves and a game and a half ahead of the Dodgers and the Pirates.
A.L. wild-card contenders reached Sunday’s games with the upstart Athletics on top of the standings. They arrived there just four days earlier, bumping the Rays, who have been scrapping with the equally upstart Orioles for second place in the A.L. East and for second place in the wild-card race.
At one time or another since the All-Star break, the Athletics, the Orioles, the Rays, the Tigers and the Angels have led the race, and all of those teams plus the White Sox and the Indians, of all teams, have been No. 2. The Angels held the top spot for the first 11 days after the break, then slipped behind the Athletics by a percentage point for two days before reclaiming the No. 1 spot for two days. Soon after that, the Angels stumbled badly and reached Sunday 4 ½ games behind Oakland and 2 ½ games behind Baltimore.
The Rays, who held the wild-card lead for 10 consecutive days in the latter half of last month, were 3 ½ games behind the A’s and 1 ½ games behind the Orioles. The Tigers lagged 4 ½ and 2 ½ back of those teams.
So many teams are in contention for playoff spots they keep running into each other on the schedule. This week, for example, the Orioles and the Rays play the Yankees, the Rays also play the Rangers and the A’s and the Angels play each other.
Then there’s the schedule for next week: Tigers at White Sox, A’s at Angels, Rays at Orioles, Rays at Yankees, Orioles @ A’s. There’s another series next week that in normal times would be a large part of this schedule. But these are not normal times so the Yankees at Red Sox series is hardly worth mentioning.
SUDDENLY SHAKY PIRATES NEED SOME MAGIC
The Pirates’ magic number, before their Sunday game, was 11. Or maybe it was 12.
The Pirates had 30 games left on their schedule, and to avoid completing two decades of losing seasons they have to win at least 11 games. To have their first winning season since 1992 they have to win 12.
Just a month ago the Pirates seemed certain to end their major league record of 19 consecutive losing seasons. On the night of Aug. 1 they had a 60-44 record, were in second place in the National League Central, only three games from first, and were all the way up there on top in the N.L. wild-card standings.
Apparently unable to cope with the atmospherics up there, they lost 18 of their next 28 games and came tumbling down to third place in the division, 10 games from first, and into a tie for third in the wild-card race. Is this any way to get to the playoffs? Is this any way to get to or over .500. They can only wait and see.
THIS BUYER HAD REALLY TO BEWARE
This is what you get for $275 million?
That’s what the nouveau riche Los Angeles Dodgers committed to spending on four players they obtained from Boston in a stunning Aug. 24 trade. The Dodgers made the trade for reasons immediate and in the future. They have a lot of time to judge the trade on a long-time basis – outfielder Carl Crawford isn’t even ready to play. But the Dodgers figured the trade would spur the team to the playoffs this season.
It’s apparently not happening immediately. The Dodgers lost five of their first eight games following the trade and gained nothing in the standings. In fact, they lost a game and a half in the division race and half a game in the race for the second wild-card spot.
Enough time remains, of course, for the old Dodgers and the new Dodgers to make a course correction for the final weeks of the season and avoid embarrassment for general manager Ned Colletti, who engineered the deal after his hands were untied by the sale of the team by bankrupt Frank McCourt to people who have money and are willing to spend it.
“Everybody here is very forward thinking,” Colletti said in a telephone interview. “They understand the big picture, the need to be bold. The thought process is very different. If we need a player, we’ll go after him.”
Slugging first baseman Adrian Gonzalez was the key for Colletti. “I tried to get Gonzalez in ’08,” he said, “but we couldn’t make it happen.” By the time Colletti revisited the possibility, Gonzalez had moved from San Diego to Boston. Colletti said he talked to Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington in May “and I kept talking to him off and on about it.”
Gonzalez is important for the Dodgers for two reasons. He is Hispanic, and Hispanics make up 40 percent of the Dodgers’ fan base. He is also a very attractive player for the Dodgers’ television purposes, and they will be negotiating a new television deal in the Fall.
Gonzalez was important for another reason. Colletti wanted a slugging first baseman, and that product had become a shrinking commodity. Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder signed as free agents last winter before the Dodges were prepared to spend, and Joey Votto signed a contract extension with Cincinnati. No free agent first baseman figured to be available in 2013 and 2014.
The immediate question for the Dodgers is will a post-season slot be available for them next month?