Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The Problem With The Post-season


Hi friends. Remember me, you're old pal Stein? I want to talk about postseason baseball. Actually all postseason sports in general, but we'll get to that. I would like to vent about it. Here is the problem that I see. The season is just too darn long. I mean, if you love baseball this is the best time of year. The playoffs of any sport are the best time of the year because you get to see the best teams compete for the opportunity to play for a championship. I enjoy watching baseball, but if the World Series goes to a game 7 this year, it is going to be in November (I think). The bottom line is that we should have had the World Series decided this week, maybe this weekend at the latest. There is aboslutely no reason that that could happen. All sports are this way. Football, hockey, baseball, basketball, nascar, golf, cricket and even chess all have seasons that go on too long. OK, maybe not cricket and chess, but all the others do.

First of all the NFL season is too long. I like the current 17 week format, but the season should start a little earlier and then eliminate the week off before the Super Bowl. I know what you are all thinking. "Stein you dumb-fuck. Those teams could use a break before the Super Bowl. It's only fair if they have an injury that the player hurt can heal up." Well I guess that is true, but I don't like waiting for two weeks to watchin the fucking game. I wan't to see it right away, and it won't be unfair at all. These teams play every week and get paid millions to do it, so I don't want to hear that bullshit. I would love for the playoffs to be played around Christmas and New Years. Wouldn't it be great to be able to indulge yourself in a football frenzy? College Football bowls and the Wild Card Playoffs all around Christmas time. What a great idea! I know. You can thank me later, but anyway that would be awesome to me and it should be to you too.

Hockey is another sport that has a season that goes too long, but it would face a much harder battle trying to shorten it. It begins in October and doesn't end until June. What a season! I will admit that hockey is my favorite sport, and I love it very much, but I hate watching it when it's 75 degrees out. It also causes problems for the ice that time of year. mid to late May is when it should be decided at the latest. But with so many teams in the playoffs, it would be a tall order to shorten the season and with such a physical playoff to begin with, I think it can't be changed unless the NHL elminates two teams from each conference making it six teams each. That would be the smart thing to do.

Basketball I don't care enough about to analyze, so we'll move on to Baseball. I would like to think that baseball can change, but it never will. Acutally none of these sports ever will, but for the fun of it lets analyze away! Baseball was alot better when they had the season end and then played the LCS. I think that baseball should elminate the divisions they have and divide the teams in each league into two divisions. At seasons end give two days off and then have the best team in each division battle in the LCS, a best of seven. then on to the world series. With this theory the World Series would have been decided about a week or two ago. If baseball wants to stay the same at least play more games in one day than usual. I love the double and even triple headers that were on at the beginning of the playoffs. There is no shame in day games and it give the the games a bit of nostalgia anyway. I like that better. The fact it however that no change is on the way. TV dominates everything and it will only get worse. I'd say the Pirates have a better chance of winning the World Series this year, than any change occuring with these season and playoff formats.

Here is an ESPN.com article written by Jayson Stark that explains the lack of excitement in the World Series...its a good one!

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