We need to change the playoffs for one year!

Original Post date - Monday, October 2, 2006

For the love of GOD, Bud Selig needs to use his emergency powers to change the playoff format for one year.
I don't have faith that Selig would EVER do the right thing (or comb his hair himself or wipe his lip which is perpetually glistening) but for the sake of the game, for one year he needs to do something drastic.

The National League stinks.
I mean in a way that goes beyond the NFC beating up the AFC for a decade and a half in football.

There are no competitive teams in the whole league!

Once the Mets lost Pedro Martinez, the four teams that have the audacity to declare themselves playoff teams do not have a single representative that would even be a Wild Card contender in the American League.

The White Sox won 90 games and the Angels won 89. They'd be the second and third base teams in the NL and were playing spoiler the last week in the AL.
Even the Blue Jays, Red Sox and Rangers would beat any of the four National League teams. And BELIEVE ME, I am not saying my 2006 Red Sox should be even mentioned in a playoff discussion.

But what NL playoff team has the Angels bullpen, the White Sox starters, the balanced line up of Toronto or the firepower of Boston or Texas?

NONE!

Should El Duque Hernandez and Jake Peavy be opening game starters at HOME in a playoff series? Of course not.
Should a team like the Cardinals, whose pitching staff besides Carpenter have ERAs with area codes and no closer, be playing for the right to go the World Series?

We are on a collision course for another American League sweep... which will mean the World Series would be clinched once again in a National League park where the championship celebration will be in front of a silent and stunned crowd where you can hear the individual "woooo"s and "alrights" from the players

Nobody wants to see that.
Not even the National League team.

So I propose for one year you have two playoffs.
The World Championship and the National League Championship.

It will be like the NCAA tournament and the NIT.
Everyone knows the teams in the NIT are inferior to the NCAAs. But they get to play for their title and when they win it, sports fans everywhere think "Good for them" and then watch the REAL championship.

A Yankees/Twins ALCS with Santana staring down A-Rod, Jeter et al would be 100 time more dramatic than any AL/NL match up you could dream of.

Hell, the Tigers vs. the A's would be more dramatic, even if it would get smaller Nielsen ratings than an Al Jeezera test pattern.

So lets have the ALCS be the World Series... just for one year.

It will be more entertaining, and the National League team can go out for Pizza and ice cream after their game.