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More Playoff Baseball?

This article is more than 9 years old.

If eight teams in the baseball playoffs registers as good,
Then wouldn’t ten be better? Well, the players think it would,
And that’s why – through their union chief – they’ve said that they’d agree
To play a longer playoff season…all for you and me.
Well, not exactly just for us, in fact, it’s for the dough
That playing more would generate when they expand the show
To bring another couple teams into the final race…
How long before the playoffs add the team that’s in last place?

In hockey and in basketball more teams are in than out,
And that’s what led Bud Selig to leap up last month and shout
That baseball had less teams in playoffs than the other sports…
A claim that had the logic of a lot of Bud’s reports.

The point is more is less if all we get’s another reason
To feel that Bud and all his kind have hollowed out the season
That once was labeled “regular.” What should we call it now?
The preview for the time that counts? The breath preceeding “Wow!”
The warm-up when the stars are resting every other day,
In games that only sort-of count although we have to pay
A great deal for the tickets just to see them all preparing
For second seasons when the action more deserves our caring?

‘Twas not so long ago that baseball’s brilliant autumn show
Included just two teams, and they would play, and we would know
That by the time the cold blew in, we’d turn to other games,
And basketball and hockey would be those diversions’ names.
But now the seasons overlap like waves upon the beach…
And no one’s grasp exceeds each growing season’s greedy reach,
And humble common sense and safety fade before the call
For more, and now the NFL, the big kid with the ball
Is ripe for adding two more games that count. It’s no surprise…
The theory of each league is, “If it doesn’t grow, it dies.”

I wonder if they’re shooting for “too big to fail?” You think?
For fellows old as I it feels as if within a blink
The seasons of the sports have all exploded, and the teams
Enjoying access to the playoffs and the heady dreams
Of glory and of riches are too many now to name…
As every sport’s expanded and outgrown its natural frame.


Bill Littlefield Twitter Host, Only A Game


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