Mediocrity rising: baseball gone "wild" with added playoff teams.

• Author: Barrett, Wayne M.
• Position: Sportscene

As has happened so many times before in the world of sports, more proves to be less in the light of day. The major league's latest boiler room scheme of adding two more playoff teams--the dreaded extra wild cards--is not even designed to address the postseason's major structural flaw, the fact that the eight (now 10) teams with the best records are not assured of securing a playoff berth.

By adding more clubs to the playoff picture--as occurred when extra divisions were created in the mid 1990s--the money-counters who run our National Pastime think they will create more races that involve more teams. That is not necessarily so. For instance, last year's dramatic September surges by the eventual world champion St. Louis Cardinals in the National League and Tampa Bay Rays in the American League, in which both clubs overcame double-digit games-behind deficits to secure a playoff berth on the final day of the regular season, would have been rendered meaningless, as the clubs that were ousted from the postseason picture--the N.L's Atlanta Braves and A.L.'s Boston Red Sox--would have qualified as the second wild card under the new system.

In fact, much the same can be said for the season before (2010), when the Braves, San Diego Padres, and eventual World Series champion San Francisco Giants fought to the final day for a playoff spot--in other words, three teams for two slots (S.E and S.D. for the N.L. West title, all three for the wild card), while the new system would have assured the entire trio a trip to the postseason.

When the World Series began in 1903, there were two eight-team leagues, the National and American. The first-place team in each circuit met in the Fall Classic. In 1969, with each league having expanded to 12 teams, East and West Divisions of six teams apiece were created. The first-place teams in the East and West in each league met in a best three-out-of-five Championship Series. The victors moved on to the World Series, a best four-of-seven affair. The LCS was extended to a best four-of-seven in 1985.

In 1995, with baseball having expanded to 30 teams, each league now was comprised of three divisions, where the division champs and the club with the best second-place record (the wild card) advanced to the playoffs, thus adding an extra round--called the Division Series, a best three-of-five--to the postseason.

Here is where injustice reared its ugly head. While the wild card setup ensures that the team with the second-best...