Philadelphia Baseball History

This week, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported that MLB was considering a proposal for a new playoff format .  Pursuant to the proposal, each league would send seven teams to the playoffs, as opposed to the current five.  The three division winners would be joined by four wild card teams.  The team with the best record in each league would earn a first round bye.  The division leaders, as well as the wild card team with the best record, would host a first round play-off series, which would be a best-of-three series.  That's right.  They would host all three games, not merely two out of the three. But so far, we have not reached the most unusual part of the proposal.  Two of the three teams hosting the first round of playoffs would get to choose their opponent from the bottom three wild card teams.  The division winner in this first round with the best record would have first choice.  The final division winner would get the second c...

The Wild Card games are over. We now know that the Yankees and the Diamondbacks will move on to the next round in the playoffs.  But for many Twins and Rockies fans, this outcome may seem unfair. They played an entire 162 game season for it all to be decided in just one game?  What if my pitcher had an off-night?  What if my best hitter were in a slump? Seems like this was all left to chance. In baseball, things are decided in a series.  Historically, there is an argument here. Baseball is the only sport where the season is built around playing a series of games against your opponents. Your team plays three games at home, and then three games on the road against a single team. Well, except for that pesky interleague play stuff where you may only have either a home or an away series. But that’s just a modern invention, and anyway you are still playing games in a series, not single games against your opponent.  The fact is that the series is deeply ing...