BS Review: Real World Series Is Cubs-Angels!

We’re all pumped for tonight’s Game 5 1/2, no? The Phillies only have to outscore the Rays over 3 1/2 innings — the Phils even get one more time at-bat — and they’re World Series champs.

Yes, we are this close to a professional sports title in this town. For years we’ve had to settle for celebrations after minor league hockey and indoor lacrosse wins. We’ve had to settle for indoor soccer titles in a league that no longer exists, though I’m happy to report that not only have the Kixx found a new league that begins play next month but they also helped Kyle Korver set a new world record for longest kickball game ever. We’ve had to settle for a USFL title.

And, so, the Phillies are now just 2 half-innings, a God Bless America/seventh inning stretch combo, and 4 more half-innings away from a World Series title. Natually, then, it’s time for the Broad Street Review to complain about baseball’s current playoff system.

BSR Editor Dan Rottenberg’s writes about the old days of baseball, where there were eight teams in each league and the one with the top record moved on to the World Series. Then the league added some teams in the 60s — such a turbulent era in every aspect of American life! — and eventually split into divisions. And now it’s the two teams with the top record in each league don’t get to meet in the World Series anymore! This means the Phillies’ possible impending World Championship isn’t as awesome as it would have been in, say, 1950, when baseball was real and black players were a newfangled introduction to the sport.

The time this change-over took place? Why, 1969, the first year of divisional play. At the time, Albert Barnes was a 15-year-old building a house or something in the suburbs.

The critical question is: Why is a summer game like baseball still being played at all at the very end of October?

The answer, of course, is the invention, a generation ago, of post-season playoffs— first one round, and now two rounds— which not only extend the season but also render the regular season largely meaningless. And that raises yet another question that nobody (especially in Philadelphia) dares to ask: Did the two teams playing in this year’s World Series really deserve to be there?

That might have been a critical question back in 1969, I guess, but not really anymore. Extra playoff rounds have been around for almost 40 years. There are nearly twice as many teams. Players now lift weights (for some reason they were too dumb to do this before). Every sport has several rounds of playoffs. Baseball actually has the fewest teams make the playoffs of any of the major sports (only eight). Yes, money is a reason why there are multiple playoff rounds; it’s also considerably more exciting for fans.

The only popular sports league without a playoff is the NCAA’s top football division, and fans complain pretty much year round that there should be a playoff instead of a ranking system largely determined by current and former coaches and ex-players.

Plus, if the team with the top record in each league went to the World Series, the Phillies’ only trip to the World Series since 1950 would have been 1977.

After Monday night’s Game 5 was suspended, the Inquirer’s Todd Zolecki wrote: “A 28-year wait to celebrate will have to be a little longer.” Really? Why wait? Since the championship is only what fallible humans say it is, why not declare ourselves the winners and hold the celebration regardless? If the Cubs and Angels were smarter, they’d hold their own World Series and do likewise.

Yes, we get it, a baseball championship is even more pointless with all these playoff rounds, almost as pointless as mom or apple pie or blog posts or art collections in Lower Merion. If only those Cubs and Angels were smarter and had their players compete in the “World’s Series of Poker: Baseball Edition” everything would make a lot more sense.

The second crash of ‘08: Our ‘derivative’ World Series [Broad Street Review]
Photo via Library of Congress