I understand that sentiment, and to some extent I agree. Playoffs are diluted in every sport. There are so many spots that the regular season often feels like just an extended exhibition schedule.
Many baseball fans still fondly remember the days from 1903 to 1968 when there were two leagues (first eight teams each, then ten) and only the top two teams qualified for the World Series. They would also generally agree that the same rules were in place from 1969 to 1993 when the leagues were divided into divisions.
Fewer football fans feel the same nostalgia for the way the NFL (and AFL) used to simply play off the East Division champion against the West Division champion, but there’s also less controversy since professional football introduced the Wild Card as early as the 1969 AFL season. The NFL has had the Wild Card for longer than it has had it without it.
But the problem is:
Wild cards are a real relief. Sure, it used to be fun when a team just had that year, won 102 games and cruised into a series. And it was even more fun when they were in a close game down the stretch and beat the other team on the final day of the season. There are books and movies written about those teams.
But the vast majority of teams from 1903 to 1993 had the exact opposite experience. Playing a June 1 season is a tough call for any fan, not just the teams that actually play the season.
The New York baseball season offers two of the best examples of why wild cards work.
On one side, you have the Mets, who in previous seasons would have been eliminated when they were 11 games below .500 and 18 games behind the Phillies. There’s no worse way to be eliminated than in May. And while we can talk all we want about the silliness of the Mets and Braves’ current weird dance of shared incompetence, the fact is that both teams are playing meaningful games. And that’s a good thing.
The Yankees? They might win the East (and I think they will), but the fact is, the Orioles are good enough to beat them there. And if they do win, and it’s because they won 101 games instead of 100, it’s hard to say the Yankees don’t deserve to be in the playoffs. The winningest team of the Casey Stengel era was 1954. They won 103 games. They finished eight games behind Cleveland. Is that true? Members of the 1954 Yankees would argue not.
Other sports have always had an open-door policy when it comes to wild cards — in fact, the NHL once allowed 16 of 21 teams to make the playoffs, which was admittedly a bit extreme.
But I do remember the first event that sparked the Knicks’ revival in the ’90s. It was 1987-88, Rick Pitino’s first year as head coach. The team started out as bad as they had been in the previous three seasons, finishing in last place with a 14-28 record. Coming into the final game of the season with a 37-44 record, still nothing to brag about, the Knicks surprisingly faced the Pacers, who were 38-43, in Game 82. A tiebreaker meant a trip to the Finals. The Knicks won a close game at Market Square Arena, 88-86, to advance to the playoffs, where they beat Bird McHale Parish’s Celtics by one game.
It may be silly to think of a team with a .463 winning percentage over the course of the season as a playoff team, but to an entire generation of Knicks fans, that final game was one of the few truly important games in 15 years. A game that really mattered.
For the record, here is a list of teams that would have been denied a chance to win the title if they had to finish first:
The Knicks in 1973.
The 1980 Islanders.
The 1983 Islanders.
The Giants in 2007.
And the New York sports world can’t pretend that it would have been better if these teams’ flags had never flown, or that they didn’t mean as much to the fans who celebrated these victories.Out of curiosity, here are four more teams that never got a chance because they didn’t have access to a wild card.
The 1942 Dodgers (104-50).
The 1954 Yankees (103-51).
The 1970 Giants (9 wins, 5 losses).
The 1985 Mets (98-64).
Personally, I would love to see the playoff games that those teams miss.
Vax Wax
It goes back to a question my friend Joel Sherman and I used to ask each other in the bad old days of the Wilpon Mets: What on earth were they thinking when the decision was made to have Hawk Tua Girl throw the first pitch in front of 15,000 camp kids on a Thursday afternoon? Number 2 choice?
Our old friend Ian O’Connor has hit the mark again with his book on Aaron Rodgers, “Out of the Darkness.” This book has everything you’d expect from a talented reporter and storyteller, shedding as much light as possible on the Rodgers mystery. It’s a truly fantastic read.
This is awesome. On Sunday nights, ESPN’s “Kidscast” will air on ESPN2. It’s a replacement for the Little League World Series, featuring a youth-only broadcast team. One of the announcers will be Chaminade High School senior Thomas Gamba (honestly, go for it, Flyers!), who cut his teeth at the Bruce Beck Sports Broadcasting Camps and the Chaminade broadcasting program overseen by former mailman Pat Reichert.
Counterattack against Vac
Bill Dankos: When we talk about starting pitchers and the six-inning rule, I think back to the 60’s. It would have been a death sentence for any manager to take Bob Gibson out of a two-hit shutout inning because he’d thrown 100 pitches. That alone would have been worth the ticket price.
Vac: Gibby, Drysdale, Marichal and Seaver all worked up a sweat, throwing 100 pitches.
Tom Crehan: On Pete Alonso: The Mets haven’t won anything with him yet, so they probably won’t win anything without him.
Vac: The response I received was 80/20 between conflicting opinions and “let him go.” Completely unscientific, but food for thought.
thank you People smile when they hear about the 1962 Mets. The 2024 White Sox are just a lame team, lacking character and certainly not led by Casey Stengel.
Mike Vack: And Marvelous Miguel Vargas just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Richard Siegelman: Aaron Judge hit 300 home runs in his first 3,431 at-bats. That extrapolates to a) 800 home runs in his first 9,150 at-bats (something 66 other players have done), and b) 900 home runs in his first 10,294 at-bats (something 24 players have done).
Vac: I wish he was a couple of years younger, I’m worried he’ll just run out of time, but I’d be happy if I’m wrong.
Next Thursday, AKTIV Against Cancer will honor Yonkers legend James Blake not only for his 10 tennis championships, but also for his charitable work; Blake has donated more than $1 million to Memorial Sloan Cancer Center. We’ll pay tribute to Blake for always giving his all, on and off the court.
