one game
When major league baseball adopted the single game wildcard game as a path to the League Divisional playoffs I was not in favor of the plan. I hated it. Baseball playoffs have always been a series based system. The entire baseball season is a schedule of sixty 3 game series for each and every team, 162 games in 180 days. Every year the greatest measure of team sports in the world is the team that plays 175-ish games to win the World Series.
The NHL and NBA play an 82 game schedule plus a 16 team playoff tournament. Every champion must play at least 98 games, if they sweep four consecutive 7 game series. Not gonna happen, but we do know the most games a hockey or basketball champion will play is 110. Baseball's regular season is 162, even for the shitty teams.
The NCAA basketball tournament is possibly the purest of all major team sports, amatuer or professional. Sixty-four teams in sixty-three games, one champion. The champion must win 6 straight games in the bracket after playing a regular season and conference playoff schedule of 30-32 games.
College football is muddy and managed poorly, even the new final four of football will not solve college football's ills. The polls still decide too much. Four teams is not enough. The bubble teams left out of the bracket may have legimate claims. Baseball has no such controversies.
Baseball has the simplest of playoffs. Six division champions from two leagues get a few days off while four teams play two games to earn the right to travel to the city with the best team in their league. Tonight was one of those games, a contest that restored my faith in the underdog. Even if Kansas City was the home favorite in this game they are the 2014 underdog.
The Royals faced the Oakland Athletics this evening, a famous franchise I respect very much. Any knowlegable baseball fan understands the history of the Athletics. They started in Philadelphia in the 1860's, moved to Missouri 90 years later and finally settled in California in the late 1960's after the Dodgers and Giants moved west. Oakland was a powerhouse franchise when I was young fan. The Athletics are the first team I saw at Fenway Park, in 1971. The team does their spring training just a few miles from where I live.
Jon Lester was pitching tonight, Brandon Moss, Josh Reddick,Jed Lowrie and Coco Crisp all started in the field. All are former Red Sox players. Jonny Gomes and Nick Punto came in later, also former Boston players. It was hard to not root for Oakland.
Tonight's game was one of the finest baseball games I've watched in my life, an instant classic.