There's a political ad running on TV in my town in which a 59-year-old librarian with a torn rotator cuff admonishes our Senator for supporting an increase in the Social Security retirement age. She complains that the constant pain she endures in the hopes of retiring at 62 will be for naught if our Senator is successful.
I am very moved by this ad. I want to find this poor woman. And shoot her.
What is absent from their argument is the cost of allowing people like this apocryphal woman to retire at 62. The cost is that Social Security won't function in 15 years. This ad argues for a handful of people to get all their money right away at the expense of our children and grandchildren ever collecting theirs at all.
This is the rationale currently being pursued by Bud Selig and MLB power brokers with respect to the playoffs. They have embarked on a short-term money-grab that will drag the sport further down the entertainment food chain. It appears likely that, because of the added revenue it will produce, owners and players will approve an expanded playoff structure starting in 2012. They want to add two more teams, and a wild-card round, to the current format.
Apparently Commissioner Bud hasn't noticed that the public is losing interest in baseball's post-season for the following reasons:
1. The team with the fourth (or worse) best record has nearly as much chance of winning the pennant as the team with the best.
2. Too many series = increased chance best teams get knocked off = less compelling championship.
3. Snow showers, sleet, parkas and baseball don't mix. Hello?
4. October belongs to pro and college football. November? Fuhgedaboutit!
More importantly, all the arguments in favor of expanding playoffs -- more teams in the race, more excitement for a larger number of fan bases, blah blah blah -- amount to a smorgasbord of irrelevance in the absence of an accounting of its many costs.
The NBA Effect is this: more teams in the playoffs yield a less meaningful regular season. Under the proposed format, the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays no longer have to worry about winning their division; they can all come to the party! People generally fail to understand that regular season drama is about that last playoff slot. Adding more slots doesn't heighten drama; it reduces its intensity as the best outfits cruise home and weaker teams battle for less significant positions.
The current proposal -- two wild cards play for a berth in the next round -- promises every bit the bone-chilling anticipation of the NCAA hoops play-in game. While the idea correctly tips the scales against division runners-up, it dilutes the accomplishment of getting in.
Worse yet: human beings do not play baseball in Minneapolis (or most of America), at night, in March and November. My yearly Opening Day pilgrimages to Cooperstown were met with closed shops because of the cold. One year it snowed on us. That was when Opening Day was in April. Another round of playoffs? Where you gonna put it? The season needs to be shortened, not lengthened.
All this is irrelevant considering the decision is about legal tender and nothing else. So let's talk cash. Selig is proposing 4-6 extra post-season games -- two best-of-three series. That's 4-6 extra sellouts, 4-6 more televised properties. But again, there's a cost.
Before wild card expansion, the World Series drew 30 million TV viewers in the US. Today, 14 million. There are many reasons, but sucking the life out of the Series is transparently (to me) the most determinative. (The NHL sends its regards.) Offering up a cadaver as your sport's championship does nothing for your sport's overall popularity, as is evidenced by the microscopic TV ratings for baseball's regular season.
MLB's rulers have to look beyond short-term revenue enhancement and focus on the long-term health of the sport. Quick fixes and Band-Aid approaches have slowly degraded the game. A little sacrifice by everyone today might be all it takes to improve the sport's prognosis over time.
Wait, am I talking baseball or Social Security?
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