MLB concluded its regular season Sunday and post-season play
begins with wild card games on Tuesday. In Tampa, Bill Chastain
criticizes the wild card scheduling, arguing wild card teams are
not faced with enough of a disadvantage. He proposes expanding
the opening series to seven games with five home games for the
better team (TAMPA TRIBUNE, 9/29). ESPN's "Baseball Tonight"
examined the merits of the wild card in light of the Padres-
Dodgers game, who played for the NL West title Sunday, knowing
even if they lost, they made the postseason as a wild card team.
ESPN's Peter Gammons: "There is a problem here because it [the
Padres-Dodgers game] doesn't really mean as much as it should.
... They have to have more incentive to finish first." Gammons
noted one suggestion "has been to make sure that the first round
of the playoffs go to seven games" with the wild card team only
getting two home games, with a series going three-two-two.
ESPN's Harold Reynolds said wild card teams should "play every
game on the road. Leave it at five games. Make them play every
game on the road." ESPN's Dave Campbell: "Even though there is
definitely something wrong with the system ... don't get rid of
the wild card. It's kept baseball in the limelight the last three
weeks when a lot of division titles were decided" ("Baseball
Tonight," ESPN, 9/29). A WASHINGTON POST editorial: "Even those
most resistant to change have been seduced in recent weeks by the
excitement of all these little ersatz pennant races continuing
right up to the final days" (WASHINGTON POST, 9/28). ESPN's Dick
Schaap: "They just don't make pennant races the way they used to.
Where was the wild card when Ralph Branca needed it?"
("SportsWeekly," ESPN, 9/29).
MLB NEWS & NOTES: The MLP Players Trust for Children made a
donation of $5,000 in honor of the Twins' Marty Cordova to the
Ronald McDonald House of the Twin Cities (MLBPA)....Mike Lupica,
commenting on the Orioles Roberto Alomar spitting on umpire John
Hirschbeck, and the appeal to his five-game suspension: "If
baseball were run right, the hearing would have been held already
and that suspension would have stood, and Roberto Alomar would
not have gotten a chance to put his team into the playoffs with a
home run." Columnist Bill Conlin: "Roberto Alomar should not
play in the postseason. A five day suspension is not enough"
("The Sports Reporters," ESPN, 9/29). In Washington, Tom Boswell:
"Yet, as is the game's current tradition, lawyers and union
leaders got his punishment delayed" (WASHINGTON POST, 9/29).
