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I Liked It Better Back When We'd Win
And so ends another season for my beloved Minnesota Twins.
Quickly and horribly.
Losing in the playoffs, it has occurred to me, a lot like losing in a poker tournament. In the words of ESPN.com's resident poker writer Jay Lovinger, "not only are you not allowed to play anymore, but everybody still playing acts as if you never existed in the first place." That's dreadfully, painfully true in poker, and is true as well in the first round of the Major League Baseball playoffs, the best-of-five Division Series, which debuted in 1995.
Think about it: people remember moments from the best-of-seven League Championship Series; Ozzie Smith's home run, Aaron Boone's home run, Dave Henderson's home run, Steve Bartman, Jeffrey Maier, the 16-inning Astros-Mets game... and I'm sure there are 9,000 others I'm forgetting. Are there any moments from the 158 games of Division Series play that really stand out, other than Derek Jeter's flip to home plate to get Jeremy Giambi and Perdo's six-inning relief no-hitter in Cleveland (and those two moments are really, really freakish, and would -- Jeter's, especially -- probably be remembered just as well had they come in an important regular-season game as well).
I'm guilty of it, too; once a team loses in the Division Series, it's pretty much out-of-sight, out-of-mind. I watched last year's ALCS between the Yankees and the Red Sox with scarcely a thought to how the Yankees had summarily dismissed my favorite team only days earlier.
I think the real problem here is something I never saw coming back when I was arguing against the idea of a Wild Card in baseball in the first place, long about 12 years ago. Back then I knew I didn't like the idea, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. It just didn't smell right.
Well, now we know. Making the playoffs in baseball used to be a big deal, and now it's not. The other sports send almost half their teams into the post-season, so you don't really even have to start paying much attention until the conference finals. Baseball used to be different; baseball, even after going to a divisional format in 1969, used to START with the conference (or, in baseball's case, the league) finals.
But baseball wasn't content with being unique, even though the appeal of baseball -- as has been discussed in this space before -- lies in the fact that it is fundamentally different than other team sports. The importance of every playoff game -- the fact that every playoff game was a BIG DEAL -- was part of what made the baseball post-season so great.
Now? Eh.
Does anybody even remember, or care, that the Rockies made the playoffs once? Does anybody remember, or care about, those late-90s Rangers or Astros teams? I think the fact that half of the playoff teams are wiped out in less than a week, most of them in games played during the middle of a work day, contributes to the cheapening of baseball playoff spots and leads to undeserving teams advancing further than they should (even though that may not necessarily have happened this year).
As overjoyed as I was that the Twins reached the 2002 ALCS against the Angels, I would have to admit that neither of those teams were as good as the teams they defeated. That's another way in which baseball is different: the 1997 Clippers would never, never, never, ever beat the 1997 Bulls in a best-of-seven series, but, the 2004 Tigers could have a couple of guys get hot at the right time and really give the 2004 Yankees a run for their money. Sure it's unlikely, but, it's possible. Baseball's old playoff system was built to defend against lesser teams catching fire at just the right time; lesser teams simply didn't make the playoffs.
Not anymore; in the last four years, the National League has send it's third-best (Marlins), fourth-best (Giants), third-best (Diamondbacks) and fourth-best (Mets) team to the World Series. The American League, during the same time, twice sent its third best team ('02 Angels and '01 Yankees), and, in the 2000 Yankees, its fifth best.
If you think this is just sour grapes from a Twins fan who almost wishes that his team hadn't made the playoffs this year if they were just going to blow it in the most torturous of fashions, then... good call, because that's exactly what this is.
But I still say that it's too easy to make the playoffs now and, as a result, it's too easy to forget about the teams that do.
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