Originally Posted by thefoss1957
The purist in me REVILES almost ALL that Bud Selig did to baseball.
What is the point of playing a 162 game schedule if you are going to have champions that are mere THIRD place teams?
When I was a kid, you had to be a LEAGUE CHAMPION to be in the WS. Then came expansion, and divisions, but, at least, a team had to be a DIVISION champion, to make the post season. Then greed set in, and IMO, to the detriment of the sport, Winning in the regular season became minimized to just being "good enough to make the playoffs".
It is pathetic. As a life long Cub fan, I was asked if I was excited by last year's playoffs. Frankly, I was appalled. The team wasn't good enough to win the Central...and I did NOT want the 100 plus year "jinx" to be broken by a mere THIRD PLACE team, that to my purist heart, had NO BUSINESS playing October ball.
I realize that mine may be a minority view...but, it is truly how I feel. Unlike the NFL, with relatively short, and by necessity, unbalanced, schedules, Wild Cards, there, make sense. For the longer NHL or NBA schedules, okay, divisional 1sts and 2nds make some sense, but, no worse than 2nd place teams truly deserve a shot. Although, in the NHL, 66% of the O-6 teams played post season. But, for the LONG MLB schedule? Expanded playoffs simply reflect the worst in greed and manipulation of the sport. Heaven Forfend, what is next? A DH for the NL! For Shame!
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