Are You (World) Serious?

Could baseball have it any more wrong in the playoffs? It's as if Bud Selig were working for the NFL.

They play 2430 games during the regular season, almost all of them in pristine conditions. If it's freezing or raining, they postpone the game.

In the playoffs, when the World Championship is on the line, they play in rain and cold together. They play in insect infestations. What's next, slaying of the first born? Game One of the World Series this year, and Game Three last year, were both mockeries, with fans huddling and players squinting through the elements in their long sleeves. You think steroids corrupted the great history of baseball? How about outfielders running through ponds during the World Series?

In the regular season, teams play six days out of seven. They need at least a four starters, and often five. In the playoffs, when the mettle of the finest clubs are being tested, they alter the game. Scheduling contests every other day -- as if it were yoga class -- creates an advantage for teams with thin staffs. Scheduling four-five-six-day breaks between series simulates -- what? The All-Star break, perhaps. Think how many showers Manny could take.

The one change MLB should make to the playoffs -- schedule East Coast games at 7:00 p.m. -- is the one overlooked. The result is that only the unemployed -- admittedly a growing cohort -- can watch to the end. When fans can't see the conclusions of the most consequential contests of the season, they lose ownership and interest in the sport.

Maybe it's a coincidence that the last good World Series was eight years ago. Maybe it's not. But let's not argue about it in the freezing rain.
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Blecch!

The NBA and NHL have ruined their sports with meaningless seasons and endless playoffs that have no connection with each other. The NFL has struck the perfect balance, with a regular slate that culls all but the best teams and significantly disadvantages the stragglers among them in the post-season.

Now, if you were baseball, which road would you head down? It appears the game has chosen the road less thought out.

Last night's Yankees-Angels contest was a microcosm of the problem. Two teams that played nearly all of their 162 games in summer conditions met on a mid-October night in New York in conditions more suitable for the Packers. This abomination is made necessary by three rounds of playoffs that push the end of the World Series into November.

And then it got worse. When players are wearing earflaps, sweatshirts and neoprene hoods under their uniforms, that's a sign the game shouldn't be played. Last night, that wasn't even enough: freezing rain fell during innings eight through twelve.

Here's the bitter irony: such horrible conditions would have led to immediate postponement during a meaningless regular season tilt. But when it really counts, MLB lacks the flexibility to wait until another day. So the players and fans are subjected to discomfort, added potential for injury, and the dramatically increased likelihood that the game will be decided by something unrelated to skill, strategy and desire.

We saw this last year, when the Rays and Phillies played two hours of a world championship game in a freezing downpour. If MLB doesn't care about its most important games, it's no wonder that most fans are watching football.

As long as they are powerless to change the calender, MLB mucky-mucks should consider moving all playoff games to the daytime in cool climates. Better yet, reintroduce doubleheaders to shorten the season, eliminate the wild card and one playoff series, and wrap up the World Series by the Ides of October. Because the way things are going now, we're going to have a Rockies-Twins World Series that gets postponed by snow until the following May.
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