Demonize This

"I can't believe this," Jason says. "I can't believe we're going to lose to this team."

"I can," I say, sighing. "My luck isn't that good."

We're sitting in luxury suite 32, tickets that were a gift from my father. We've got a view that looks a bit like this:



Only, now it's night time and everyone's in a bit of a state of disbelief. It's not that the Yankees are losing this game that has us baffled, it's that the Yankee offense has only managed one run and that two of Minnesota's three runs were gotten off of Phil Hughes and Mariano Rivera.

Phil Hughes and Mariano Rivera. The back end of the Yankees' bullpen. The reason the team won 103 games. They are going to cost the team the game.

****

Earlier:

The story heading into the game was whether or not Joe Giradi (#27 below) and his decision to start Jose Molina over Jorge Posada would be cause for concern.



As it would turn out, the decision would be a non-issue. Molina, as we suspected, did not get a hit, but he never came to the plate in a crucial situation, either.

When AJ Burnett was done pitching after the sixth inning, Jose Molina was done catching. And so it went.




The Yankees didn't score a run until late in the game, when Alex Rodriguez drove in Derek Jeter after Jeter hit a double to right field.



We celebrated A-Rod's RBI hit, his third RBI in two postseason games, further strengthening the notion that A-Rod's demons are stuff of myth and slow-news-day media constructs. We didn't know what would happen later.

After Burnett came out of the game, Joba Chamberlain came in to pitch the seventh.



Chamberlain was sharp, getting the first two hitters he faced out before failing to get the third and Girardi, with a quick hook, pulling him from the game.



We were treated mid-seventh inning to Ronan Tynan's stirring rendition of God Bless America.





The entire Stadium sang with him, maybe because it was him, maybe because it was the postseason, but whatever reason, we sang.

****

In the eighth inning, Phil Hughes fails. The game is a 1-1 tie, and Hughes gets two quick outs, but can't get the third. Minnesota scores one run and Girardi goes to Mariano Rivera, who is more or less the Hammer of God, as multiple sources call him. If Mo can just hold it here, we think, we'll have a chance.

Thing is, Mo does not. The Twins score another run and it's a 3-1 game with only two at bats left for the Yankees.

It gets worse in the bottom of the eighth, when the Yankees go down 1-2-3, not even making an effort of it.

Jason is inconsolable, but the man sitting to my right is stoic.

"They're going to win," he says.

****

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Mark Teixeira is first up.

"He really needs a hit here," Jason says, "he can't take an oh-fer for the first two games." Jason is right. Teixeira doesn't have a postseason hit yet, and if he doesn't get one here, he'll fast become a goat.

Maybe Teixeira hears us; he lines the pitch into right field for a single. The Stadium begins to sense something and gets a little excited.

After all, Alex Rodriguez comes to the plate.



My thoughts are simple: I just want Alex Rodriguez to get on base without making an out. I even pray: please, G-d, please let the Yankees do this. Please let them win.

Jason's are more elaborate: "This place is going to go ape-shit if Alex hits one out."

We watch as Joe Nathan deals ball one to Alex. Then ball two. And ball three. Nathan gets Rodriguez to a 3-1 count and then...

...A long, high, grand drive. It's going to be pretty darned deep. It's going to be at least a double. It's going to hit off the wall. It's going to be GONE.

One swing, and all of the past Rodriguez playoff demons are forgotten as though they had never existed in the first place.





The Stadium crowd is so loud, so excited that it's literally shaking. A home run. A game tying home run. A game tying home run by Alex Rodriguez. A game tying home run by Alex Rodriguez in the ninth inning.

Whatever happens from here on out, we've all beared witness to this. We'll all remember this. Everything about it. Everything that went into it, and everything that came out of it.

We make Rodriguez take a curtain call.

****

The Yankees don't win the game in the ninth, and they don't win the game in the 10th although they should have: Brett Gardner, running for Jorge Posada makes it to third base on a bad throw to second while trying to steal, and Derek Jeter is on first base with only one out.





All Johnny Damon needs to do is hit a fly ball deep enough to score Gardner and the Yankees will win.

Damon, however, does not. He lines out, and because Gardner is halfway to home--having gone on contact--it becomes an easy double play.

The Stadium deflates. Minnesota has another chance and the Yankees are running out of pitchers.

****

Damaso Marte enters the game because Joe Girardi has already used Phil Coke.

Marte hasn't had a good season and none of us have much faith in Marte's ability to get three outs. We'll take just one, and Marte can't even do that tonight.

Girardi has three choices: leave Marte in, go to Chad Gaudin or go to David Robertson. Gaudin is a generally effective long reliever, but Robertson, who has occasionally struggled in high-leverage situations, has the better stuff.

Girardi goes to Robertson.

At first, the choice is disheartening as Robertson allows a single that loads the bases with no one out.

"There is no possible way this can end well," I say, not because I'm Optimist Prime, but because I want to temper my own expectations.

Yet, Robertson gets the next batter to line out to Teixeira, so hard that no one has a chance to tag and score.

After one out, there's a soft grounder that Teixeira throws home for out number two, and all of a sudden, there is a palpable relief of tension. It doesn't matter how the third out is gotten, just as long as there's the out.

There's a fly ball to Brett Gardner, who sets under it, catches it, and runs off the field.

***

It's fitting that in the bottom of the eleventh, Teixeira is first at bat.



He had the two stellar defensive plays last half inning, and had he not had that single in the ninth inning, Rodriguez's home run would have meant little.

Here, we'd just like Teixeira to get on base. We want the game to end this inning.

So Jose Mijares, a rookie reliever who's not actually that shabby, pitches to a $180 million first baseman.

There's a drive to left field.

We know it's hit hard enough, but we don't know if it's fair or foul.

It stays fair, but we don't know if it's high enough.

It has the height. Just. Barely. It grazes the top of the wall, and if you watch the replay, you can hear a hush as the crowd tries to process what has just happened. Then we realize:

"It went over! It's over! We win!"









We stay for the pie, because you have to. These are the New York Yankees, this is 2009. You stay for the pie.




****

I had never before been to a game and thought, afterwards, "I'll remember this for the rest of my life."

Never, that is, until tonight.


*****

I was able to meet up with a fair few: fellow bloggers Ben Kabak of River Ave Blues, Amanda Rykoff (@amandarykoff), fellow blog reader Justin Y. and beat writer Marc Carig (@ledger_yankees).

I went to meet Justin while the Twins were taking BP. Justin was sitting in the bleachers, but we'd never met before, so while I was looking for him I wasn't entirely paying attention to what was going on on the field.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a bad idea. My head was nearly lopped off by a home run ball, saved only by my very innate and well developed instinct to duct.

I attended the game with Jason Rosenberg from It's about the money, Stupid. He has a much, much better camera than I do so please hit him up for some truly amazing shots.

TBS LDS Coverage Lacking

It's become an almost perennial right: to complain and mope about the TV or radio crew broadcasting a current baseball game. We complain about John Sterling, about Michael Kay, about Joe Buck and Tim McCarver and about Joe Morgan and John Miller.

In fact, the only currently working broadcaster of whom I have not heard a bad word spoken is one Vin Scully.


Still, despite our lofty expectations--that the play-by-play announcer receive timely eye exams so that faulty depth perception may be corrected with *gasp* glasses, that the HD feed remain steady without freezing or jumping, that the camera angle be set to the greatest advantage for the fans--the TBS broadcasts of the 2009 League Division Series have got to be at or at least very very near the bottom of the barrel.

My biggest issue right now is that TBS still employs Chip Caray to do play-by-play broadcasting.

Check out this post from It's About the Money Stupid. One line sums it up: "Line drive. Base hit. Caught out there."

We all saw this when we were watching the Twins/Tigers game--perhaps one of the greatest baseball games ever played. Well, almost all of us. I had by then switched to the Spanish language broadcast--something I'd taken to doing last year to avoid listening to announcers I couldn't stand. (Hey, as a way to get some language practice, it actually works pretty well, but I digress).

The astute fans out there took that immortal Dewey-defeats-Truman photo and replaced Truman's face with Caray's, and the paper's headline morphed to "line drive, base hits!".

The pity here is that Caray has been paired with Ron Darling, who by many counts, is one of the best that national-level broadcasting has to offer. Darling deserves better.



Next, we have the issue of Off-center vs dead center cameras. Click on the link to RAB and watch the video clip--it's enlightening.

TBS can't be held accountable for using off-center cameras when there are no dead-center cameras available, but as the video states, the network is using only off center cameras even though dead center options exist in Boston and St. Louis--two cities with playoff teams.

This is perhaps an issue that should be addressed at greater length in the off-season. I'm not sure that every stadium can fit in a dead-center camera, but I would imagine that it's a possibility for most.

We're so concerned about getting the best viewing experience possible, it'd be nice if we could actually see pitches the way that they really are, and not at a tilted angle that can obscure whether they are inside or outside of the strike zone.


Speaking of an enjoyable viewing experience, TBS has got to do something about their 'technical difficulties' with the feed.

On numerous occasions--and this isn't just me--the feed has frozen, both audio and visual, and sometimes for long enough periods of time that game action is missed--such as last night when catcher's interference was called in the Boston/LA Angels game, and none of us got to see it. Instead the broadcast went blank, to commercials, back to blank and only then picked up the action at the top of the next inning.

TBS here isn't some regional start-up network; it's a major national station which is
broadcasting playoff baseball--you know, games that actually really matter.

I'm not looking for Hall of Fame broadcasting quality here, I'm looking for basic competency, and so far TBS has not impressed.

I don't know when TBS' broadcast rights are up, but at this moment it's hard to imagine another station would be that much worse.

Ghosts? What ghosts?

The common refrain going around the Yankee fan base right now is that while nothing is guaranteed, and that the Yankees are not guaranteed to win their series against the Twins, there is a different feel around this year's squad than there has been in many years. This team is likable, fun to root for and really, really damned good.

So nevermind CC Sabathia's less than stellar postseason ERA or Alex Rodriguez's absence of a decent postseason since the ALCS of 2004.

This is a team where expectations are not just high for the free agents signees who make more in a year than some entire countries, but for those who have played only for the Yankees and those who came to the Yankees in unheralded trades. The team won 103 games in the regular season, and one or two players can't win 103 games all on their own. Though, God knows Albert Pujols tried.


As with any beginning, there are opening ceremonies of a sort. With the ALDS it's nothing too spectacular--full line ups and guys in uniform, but it's somewhat muted. It's good to be here, but there's still a while to go before the grand prize.



When the players are introduced, some receive particularly loud accolades--like Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter--while others receive, well, lots of non-accolades. Like Carl Pavano.



Because of the odd start time, the Stadium was still fairly empty as the lineups were being announced.



By the time the first pitch was thrown, however, almost every seat was filled.

The National Anthem always seems to add a sense of "this is it, this is what we live for."





As the Yankees take the field, there is a rush of excitement. As stated earlier, if you're a fan at that Stadium at that time, you're either way amped up, or you're dead.



With no other game going on at the present moment, the scoreboard instead displays the line up of both teams, highlighting the next batter to come to bat.



The blazing lights against the sunset make for an auspicious early game atmosphere.



The Twins took an early 2-0 lead that could have never have been: had a close pitch been called a strike three, CC Sabathia would have gotten out of the inning. Instead, a couple hits and a passed ball, and the Twins had a 2-0 lead.

That lead was, however, short lived.

Reason A: Derek Jeter



Jeter has done a lot of great things in his career and is something of an immortal among Yankee fans. Hitting a left field home run to tie a game? Awesome. And in the postseason? Well, there's only one Derek Jeter.



Hit a home run like that, then hear the entire Stadium erupt in chants of M-V-P! M-V-P! (Yes, we know it's going to Mauer. No, we don't care.)


Meanwhile, Sabathia must have been somewhat mindful of his rapidly escalating pitch count: he settled down and started to deal.



Despite having over 70 pitches after the fourth inning, Sabathia pitched into the seventh inning and did not walk a single batter.

The Twins were the first to go to their bullpen--by this time the Yankees had already taken the lead.



Who did the Twins call upon?



I swear I'm not making this up.

Not too long afterwards, Hideki Matsui hit a home run--the type that screams HEY YAY INSURANCE RUNS! My friend Brent summed up our reactions pretty well.





With two outs in the seventh inning and the Yankees with a four run lead, Joe Girardi did the prudent thing and went to the bullpen before Sabathia's pitch count approached abusive levels. He left to a raucous ovation.



In came Young Master Hughes.



There was a massive Orlando Cabrera at bat just to end the seventh inning, but Hughes got the job done, and instead of having to face Joe Mauer with the bases loaded, Joe Mauer came up in the 8th with no one on.

This is the only game I've ever been to where I've actually heard people sing "God Bless America".



It was a stirring rendition courtesy of the NY Pops



This is just a really awesome late-game shot:




Out went Phil Hughes, and in came Joba Chamberlain. Phil Coke also made an appearance and had the best possible appearance for a reliever: one pitch, one out. It was nearly a double play, but Mauer was just a shade too nimble for Teixeira.




With a five run lead--and here it should be noted that two of these runs, yes two are the direct responsibility of Alex Rodriguez, something you haven't seen in an October write up for a while--it perhaps seems strange that the Yankees bring in their closer, but this is October. You don't take chances.

Enter Sandman. Exit Twins.










Magic number, that real magic number that all Yankee fans really care about, is now down to ten.

And we'll see you Friday night!

You Yankee fan, you're either amped up or dead

You wait all season for this: October baseball. It is the promised land.

Today, as one tweeter put so well, is like Christmas except you don't have to buy anyone presents or go to Church (unless you count Yankee Stadium as Church, in which case you want to go).

This is where the Yankees belong on game one of the 2009 postseason: In front of a raucous crowd of 45,000(+) fans, on a cool October night, with CC Sabathia on the mound and every single person living and breathing baseball.

Some will call us spoiled, we only had to wait one year, but even one year without baseball in the Bronx in October is one year too many. So tonight, we celebrate the return, however shortly-awaited it may have been.

You might be cheering from the stands, from the bleachers, from a bar or from your living room, but you will be cheering, because this is what it means to be a Yankee fan.

You'll be cheering every Sabathia strike, yelling epithets after every first pitch swing by a Yankee batter and still confused that Jose Molina will be starting playoff games in a five game series.

You've actually looked at plane tickets from JFK to Minnesota, even if they cost more than all you currently have in your bank account.

You're ducking out of work or class early because you just can't fathom missing the first pitch.

You can't think about anything but baseball.

You're a Yankee fan, and you're either amped up, or you're dead.


****

Some deity out there has smiled unnaturally on me, and I'll be at games one and two. If you're going and would like to say hi, send me a tweet or an email and I'll do my best. I can't provide live coverage of the games, but I will come back bearing photos, I promise!

Yankees to start Molina in the Postseason a mistake?

Via numerous sources, it has been established that Jose Molina will catch AJ Burnett in the ALDS.

I have no personal issue with Molina, but I am of the opinion--and I know I'm not alone in this--that this is a mistake.

I'd forgive Girardi, for it being his first postseason and all, but the stakes are too high. In a five game series, a team can't really afford to lose even one game at home, and if Burnett starts game two, as seems likely, then the Yankees will have seriously weakened their offense by starting a back up catcher who did not even hit .250 for the season.

If Girardi doesn't want to start Posada, if Burnett has a problem with Posada, at the very least Girardi could consider starting Cervelli. I know Cervelli is a rookie with limited experience, but as he's shown during the season, he's not as slow as fill-in-the-metaphor like Molina, but a legitimate threat to beat out an infield hit.

Neither Cervelli nor Molina, however, can replace Posada's bat.

If the Yankees lose game one tomorrow night and Burnett is indeed the game two starter, the pressure will be on Burnett to deliver.

Still, the Yankees have an offense that will, even without Posada's bat, be more potent than either that of Detroit or Minnesota, and Girardi was a weak-hitting catcher himself, but that didn't stop him from winning rings in 96, 98 and 99.

Maybe he knows something we don't.

Let's hope this is the case.

The Top 10 Moments of the Yankees' 2009 regular season

Some of these will not be among your traditional choices. Feel free to add your own in the comments.


10) Nick Swisher's surprise pitching appearance

This won't be a traditional choice, since it's not something that anyone is necessarily proud of, but Swisher's relief appearance in April provided a brief moment of levity in a bad loss and also gave Yankee fans an idea as to how valuable Swisher could be for the Yankees--a trade that many were wary of in the first place. One season and 30, mostly road home runs later, Swisher is easily a fan favorite. While he is not solely responsible for the 2009 Yankees shedding the image of a buttoned-up business club and adopting that of, well, a baseball team, it'd be foolish to ignore the large part he played.

9) The Francisco Cervelli Miracle

In May, both Jorge Posada and Jose Molina went down with leg injuries, almost within days of each other. The Yankees' only real option at that point became calling up Francisco Cervelli and Kevin Cash--one who was hitting .190 in AA Trenton, and the other whom was the Yanks' fourth-string catcher.

No one expected anything from Cervelli other than someone that could squat behind the plate and catch pitches.

What they got was someone hitting to a .270 clip. He didn't hit for power (then again, your number nine hitters seldom do), but he made the jump from AA to the Major Leagues without being an automatic out. What's more, like a microcosm of the 2009 team, Cervelli performed best in high leverage situations.


8) Alex Rodriguez bookends the season

When Alex Rodriguez hit the very first pitch he saw of the 2009 season for a home run at Camden Yards, many hailed it as the turning point in the Yankees' season, and it was. How many, however, thought he would hit a grand slam on the last pitch he saw of the 2009 regular season?

The thing about A-Rod's 2009 season is that it seemed, for the most part, to fly under the radar. He had his 30 home runs, his 100 RBI, and his best moment hitting a 15th inning walk-off home run against the Boston Red Sox, but what he didn't have was the New York media hounding his every move.

The steroid story broke in February, but like his teammate Andy Pettitte, Rodriguez admitted he used, and then moved on. When Selena Roberts' tell-all book came out, it fell flat and for once, surrounded by new teammates named CC, AJ and Teixeira, Rodriguez could simply be "one of the guys".

Just how valuable was A-Rod to the 2009 season? Thirty home runs over five months means 36 had he played a whole year, and 100 RBI in that time becomes 120. Thirty-six home runs and 120 RBI in any circumstance buys you some MVP votes.


7) Brian Cashman visits Atlanta

The Yankees had just won a series against the Mets on sheer luck, and then dropped series to the Nationals and Marlins. They were in danger of doing so yet again to the Braves, before Brian Cashman showed up on the road.

If anyone knows what Cashman said, they've done a good job keeping it quiet, but whatever he said seems to have worked. After that date--June 24--the Yankees went 65-27--a .706 winning percentage.

A-Rod's return helped the Yankees go from a third place team to a contender; after Cashman's visit the Yankees went from a contender to the odds-on favorite to win it all.


6)Luis Castillo walks off for the Yankees

Of all the moments of either team's respective season, perhaps nothing more exemplifies the way the seasons were for either team than this moment.

It is a testament to the number of times the Yankees won on nothing more than sheer luck in the 2009 season, but any team winning over 100 games is going to have their fair share of calls going their way or errors in their favor.

The thing about this game, though, is that when Castillo dropped the ball, there are a large number of baserunners that would have simply advanced one base and then passed the baton to Alex Rodriguez. The Yankees, though, had Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira on the basepath, and the two of the hustled around the bases--Teixeira from first--scoring and winning that game. Everyone will remember Castillo dropping that ball, but how many will remember Teixeira's hustle?


5) Phil Hughes goes to the bullpen

No, I'm not arguing that Hughes should forever more be a reliever, but in the 2009 season, putting Hughes in the bullpen at once solved the Yankees' bullpen problems (okay, helped solve would be more accurate) and may, in the end be the best thing for the development of young master Hughes.

At once the Yankees had an eighth inning guy that was simply stellar--like Joba Chamberlain in 2007, but more efficient. Not a 100 mph guy like Joel Zumaya, but a guy that came in, got three outs, and handed the ball to the great Mariano. The Hughes-Rivera tandem sparked more than a few comments about reminiscing to the dynasty years of the late 1990s.

What's more, however, is that unlike Chamberlain, Hughes had the majority of the season in the bullpen--time to get used to the everyday-ness of major league life for one, and plenty of talking time with Mariano, for another. There are quite a few who will argue that breaking a pitcher in the bullpen first, before transitioning him to the rotation in the next season, is the way to go. We'll see if it works with Hughes, but for the moment, the Yankees have gotten themselves, quite probably, the best back end of a bullpen in the 2009 playoffs.

4) Mariano Rivera nabs his 500th save and first RBI in the same game

One feat will get Rivera to the hall of fame and the other will not, but guess which one the beat reporters all said Rivera wanted to talk about more?

There's something to be said for the save statistic itself as being overrated--saves are only possible when your team has already done most of the work--but even if we were to look at save percentage, a better measurement for how successful a closer is, Rivera is still the top of the pack.

While Rivera may not have been as decent, in terms of peripherals, as he was in 2008, this is rather a statement as to how absurdly good his 2008 was than anything else--in 2009 he was still easily one of, if not the, best closer(s) in all of baseball.

He had his longest in his career streak of converted saves, still managing a K/9 ration of over nine and a WHIP under one.

Thirty nine year old closers aren't supposed to do that...


3. Jeter breaks hit record

It was an ugly, rainy night and an uglier game that resumed at 12.40 AM after a lengthy rain delay, but no one will remember that.

What they will remember, however, is Jeter breaking the all-time hits record for a Yankee. It's still sort of marvelous that Jeter did not have to get a 3,000th hit to do so (though he likely will sometime in 2011), but what Jeter did is still quite an accomplishment, especially when one considers how historically-minded the Yankee fan base can be.

Derek Jeter's 2009 was simply a renaissance; he wasn't just better with his bat, the switch to the lead off spot working wonders there, but he was also that much better in the field. Many attribute his better range to playing farther back on the infield, but whatever it was that he did, it worked.

Jeter's value has long been unquantifiable, but his breaking the hit record simply gave us another reason to celebrate it.


2. Yankees sweep Red Sox in four game series

This series seems to have been the defining moment for the 2009 season. Going into the series, the Yankees were just barely in first place and 0-8 against the Red Sox for the season. Needless to say, there was a lot riding on the results.

In front of a stadium crowd that had a relentless, playoff-like atmosphere, the Yankees thrived.

They won games every way possible--slugfests (Thursday), extra inning pitcher's duels (Friday), and close games that involved coming from behind in the late innings (Sunday).

The Yankees simply out-played the Red Sox in every facet of the game, and at the end of the series they were so far in first place that they cruised to a division title, their first since 2006.

That series, perhaps more than any other, was a testament to the character and resiliency of the 2009 Yankees, who started the season 0-8 against Boston and then went 9-1 the rest of the way.


1) Melky Cabrera gets pied

Okay, so this isn't so much about Melky Cabrera's getting pied--in May, against the Twins and Joe Nathan, as the Yankees came back from a 4-2 deficit in the ninth inning--as it is about the number of pies the entire team had. I think the final tally is something like:

Cabrera 3
Rodriguez 2
Damon 1
Posada 1
Swisher 1
Cervelli 1
Miranda 1
Matsui 1
Canó 2 (?)
Castillo (okay, no actual pie).


The walk off wins speak of a team that doesn't quit and a team that fans can always believe will win--a team where everyone stays through the ninth inning, even when losing because they always believe there is that chance, and the pies speak of a team that's, well, a team.

As friends and I have discussed quite often, what sets the 2009 Yankees apart from many of the recent teams is that this team is one you want to root for, a team that's good, that's fun, and that does as much good off the field--such as Hope Week--as they do on it.

In the course of the 2009 season, the Yankees only had one homestand in which they did not have a walk off win, which is quite the accomplishment. You do sort of get the feeling that the walk off magic might lead to some interesting things happening throughout the rest of this month...

An October Issue

More than one person today has brought up with me an issue concerning the postseason.

It doesn't have anything to do with whether or not Joba should start in a postseason series (and after being treated to his antics in person last night I am less than willing in this regard) or who starts game two. Rather, this issue has to do with the playoff structure itself.

Now, playoffs in almost any sport are a crapshoot. These are why office pools exist, after all, and why the mantra so often is "just get in".

The problem is, baseball, unlike any other major sport accentuates the "crapshoot" nature of the playoffs.

It's sort of mind-boggling that both the NBA and the NHL have seven-game series in their first round (yes, I know the NBA is a recent adjustment) when their season is 82 games long, while the MLB, which has a season double in length has a first round of only five games.

Never mind the issues that can be brought up with who makes it to the playoffs in the first place--it is entirely possible for a team to have a better record than another division winner but still miss the playoffs because they are not as good as the Wild Card team--a five game series is not the right way for an MLB playoff series to go.

Keep in mind, the refrain of most managers is that "the season is a marathon, not a sprint." Marathon mentality runs rampant: getting players games off so they stay healthy, making a move later in the season as opposed to setting an early pace--these are all common motifs.

Now imagine telling someone like, say, Paula Radcliffe--winner of three NYC marathons--that three days after running her last marathon she has to go compete in the 400m dash.

Never mind that the mental preparations and physical requirements for marathoning and sprinting are as different as those, perhaps, of baseball and football (okay, I'm stretching this metaphor a little), but this is more or less what a baseball team is supposed to do: they are supposed to suddenly adjust from the marathon mentality of the regular season to the sprint mentality of the playoffs.

It's not a coincidence that Wild Card teams seem to have done so well in recent postseasons: '97, '02, '03, '04 World Series winners were all Wild Card teams, and while the '07 Rockies didn't win the Series, their September miracle might make them the most well-known of all the Wild Card teams. The Wild Card often comes down to the last week or even the last days of the season, and those teams have to adopt a sprint-like mentality just to make the playoffs.

While I'm all for equality, the nature of the playoffs would actually seem to give some sense of an advantage to a Wild Card team--I could explore this further, but let's get back to the issue at hand.

Baseball as a sport is well known for its oddities and unexpected occurrences. The season is 162 games long because even the best baseball team will have a losing streak--remember, even the Yankees had a five-game losing streak in May and dropped a series to the Nationals in June--and it can take that long to separate the contenders from the pretenders.

A five game series, then, is like flipping a coin in the air to decide who gets to move on to the ALDS.

Since I assume you have a mild interest in the Yankees if you're reading this, just think about 2007. Was Cleveland a better team than the Yankees that October? Maybe--but one game was decided not so much by the players as it was by, well, midges. Most of us will still argue that Torre's failure to take the team off the field cost the Yankees that game--and the difference between going to New York split or down 0-2. In a five game series, being down zero games to two is often--thought the 01 Yankees will attest, not always--a death knell.

Again, the thing about baseball is that the length of the regular season allows for oddities like midges, games whose results are determined more by fluke than actual talent.

If the NBA and NHL can manage not just seven game series, but manage to do so every round--which is four rounds as opposed to baseball's three--I have to wonder why a stronger push hasn't been made for the LDS to also be a seven game series.

Part of me wants to argue that they had it right when only the best record in the league played in the World Series and there were no playoffs, but then I'd also have to be willing to part with the '00 ring and other World Series appearances, so I'll draw the line at simply arguing for a longer first round series.

A team that plays every possible game, including a one-game playoff, will play a grand total of 182 games between April and October. So what's the issue with two more?