TGIF. . .But I Work Saturdays. . . At Least There's Baseball. . .Kind of

We're going to get to the baseball playoffs which start this afternoon, but right off the bat, since it's sports Fridays, let start with the obvious picks for the weekend:

CFB

1) KSU-24: I've seen KU play in person and they are wretched with a capitol yuck. If this games under 30 I'd really be surprised.  Time for Snyder to show Weiss how the big boys do it.

2) West Virgina+7: Anyone watch the Baylor/WVa game last week?  I'm not sure their defense is any good, but I know they can score on anyone at any given time.  Texas better be ready. Plus, WVA was the preseason Big 12 pick, so I'm not sure why the line is so high even when it's in Texas.

3)La Tech-24, UL Monroe-3, N. Illinois-3: I know what you're saying, you've never heard of these teams before. I get it. But let me tell you something, these teams can flat out play.  I've followed and been with them all year so there's no reason to let up now.  They are covering machines and should do so again this Saturday.

NFL

1) Baltimore Ravens-5: Like I said last week, until my chiefs can show that they are an NFL team and not a D1 team, I will continue to bet against them.

2) Pittsburgh Steelers-3: They are at home, Philly has all kinds of problems and Pitt is coming off the buy.  They are as healthy as they can be at this point and Philly is on the down slide.

3) Chicago-4.5: Carolina is horrid. Cutler loves to twist the knife and with Forte back, things should really come together for the Bears this weekend.

So let's get to the meat of this Friday's blog. MLB baseball. Let me first say that I love baseball. Played it all my life. Wasn't great at it, but I tried.  Usually when you are not athletically great at something, but you still love it, you tend to follow it more after you quite trying. I follow baseball about as closely as I follow any major sport which means I'm just left of nerdom, but still way right of most Americans. Baseball, being America's past time, has had it's ups and downs over the years. Strikes, tied all star games, a canceled world series.  Let's just say it hit a rough patch.  And I understand that the NFL has supplemented the MLB as America's go to sport, but my love for the game hasn't changed. Whether it's live or on tv, I can sit there and watch an entire game.  With attendance and ratings up across the board for baseball in the last few year's, I think America is with me: baseball has made a comeback. The playoffs though. . . I just don't get it.

Call me old school, and by old school, I mean I'm over thirty, but the expansion of the playoffs makes no sense. Prior to 1994 there were two leagues and two divisions in each league.  American and National Leagues, an East and West Division in each.  With expansion of baseball and the addition of the Rays, Rockies, and Marlins, they added a new Central division to each league, re-shuffled the teams and now there were 3 divisions in each league.  Since no one can just sit out a round of playoffs, a new "wild card" was added. This alone caused panic and uproar throughout the lives of geeks everywhere.  Suffice it to say, based on the number of teams that have won the World Series as wild cards, and I think even that has worked out as well. 8 teams, then 4, then 2 in the World Series.  It makes sense numerically and everything is fine.

A second wild card?  Does that even make sense? 5 teams to the playoff's in each league. A 1 game  series between the two wild card teams to decide who is the wild card team?  We're getting a little carried away with it right?  I understand the concept behind it.  Play til the end.  Try and win your division instead of coasting in as the lone wild card.  Who are we kidding though right?  It's about money. wild card t-shirts. 1 more home game. more television time.  You can make all the excuses you want about the integrity of the game but expansion, whether its the number of teams you have or the number of games you play; whether its in the NFL, MLB, of NBA; it's always about revenue. If that weren't true, there would be contraction.  We would get rid of several teams who aren't supported by their market and make all of the other teams around them stronger. We don't though.  We change formats, rules, and regulations so that it makes it look like things will be better.  And maybe they will be.  I for one will tune in to both games today to watch the drama unfold. I hope the Braves and Orioles win their games and move on to the next round. I assume after a number of year's that this new 2 team wild card format will seem just as normal as 3 separate divisions do now. Where it will lead though is easy to see. Just like in the NBA where half of the teams make the playoff, i bet within 10 years we'll have 6 or 8 teams from each league in the playoffs.  What ever it takes to keep this game new, fresh and relevant to today's fan. Or in other words, whatever brings in the most money.