There are reasons to like the wild card. Bud Selig likes the wild card because it creates more late-season interest in the cities whose teams have a chance to make the playoffs as a second-place team. Fans in those cities would otherwise have nothing to root for in the final weeks and months, and more interest in more cities means more revenue for teams and for Major League Baseball.

The Angels like the wild card because in 2002 they won the World Series after qualifying for the post-season as a wild card. The 2003 Marlins and the 2004 Red Sox followed the same path to their World Series championships. They like the wild card, too.

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When Joaquin Andujar, a two-time 20-game winner, pitched for St. Louis in the 1980s, he was notorious for a certain answer he gave when reporters asked him what he thought of a particular situation. He said: “Baseball can be summed up in one word – you never know.”

Andujar’s word count might have been off, but his view was right on target. You never do know.

I invoke the words of Joaquin to describe the stunning response to the column I wrote about the Pittsburgh Pirates last week. I was critical of the Pirates for trading away their established players in the name of rebuilding with young players and leaving their 2009 team a woefully poor representative of a major league team.

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Half a dozen men affiliated with baseball in different ways were on a conference call earlier this week discussing managers. They comprise a committee that would select a manager of the year for an annual award. This was not the award given by the Baseball Writers Association of America but one presented by the Rotary Club of Pittsburgh named for Chuck Tanner, who managed the Pirates to the 1979 World Series triumph.

Each member of the committee was asked to nominate worthy candidates for the award, and I mentioned Jim Tracy and Tony LaRussa, both deserving of the award for obvious reasons. Other members mentioned other managers, including Jim Leyland, and when everyone had named his nominations I spoke about Leyland.

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