The Fall Not-So-Classic

Seeking a Better Balance Between Tradition and Innovation (No. 76)

In the short story “Day Game” from my collection Ocean of Storms, I tell the tale of a grade-schooler who finds a broken transistor radio in the street on his way to class. He and some friends put it back together and persuade their teacher to let them listen to part of the World Series game being played that afternoon between the Orioles and Pirates. It’s a charming reminder of a time when sports hit different, baseball was played during the day, and listening to games on a small radio was a rite of passage.

However, “Day Game” also illustrates how nostalgia distorts our view of the past and encourages hazy comparisons with the present. It has been more than 40 years since a World Series game was played outdoors during the day. While it’s easy to look back on the era of daytime World Series games with a certain fondness—and I do—the fact is the protagonist ultimately was not able to listen to the full game because it took place during school hours. The same applies to many people in 9 to 5 jobs; day baseball is enjoyable only if you have access to it.

Likewise, when I first started following baseball in the early 1970s, each league—American and National—was split into two so-called “geographic” divisions. I use “geographic” loosely because the National League West included the Cincinnati Reds and the Atlanta Braves, while teams located farther west, such as the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals, were placed in the East. The arrangement defied logic, but fans grew accustomed to those quirks.

The playoff format in those days was simple: the team with the best record in each division advanced to a best-of-five League Championship Series, and the winners met in the World Series. Clean, straightforward, and easy to follow. Still, the system wasn’t without idiosyncrasies. Most glaringly, some excellent teams were left out of the postseason altogether. A club could win 98 games (as the 1974 Reds did) yet still go home in October if it happened to trail a divisional powerhouse. Meanwhile, a weaker division winner with fewer wins (the 88-win 1974 Pirates) would advance. Geography, rather than performance, occasionally determined a team’s fate.

Being in the same division as one of the dynasties of the era—say, the Oakland A’s of the early 1970s or the Cincinnati Reds during the “Big Red Machine” years—was practically a death sentence. For the other teams in their division, the season was effectively over by the All-Star break, not because they weren’t good, but because they simply weren’t great enough to topple a juggernaut.

The first major shake-up came in 1994, when Major League Baseball reorganized each league into three divisions: East, Central, and West. For the first time, the playoffs welcomed a Wild Card: the team with the best record among non-division winners. This change addressed one of the system’s biggest inequities. Now, a 98-win runner-up was no longer punished simply for sharing a division with a 102-win colossus. Although a players’ strike canceled the postseason that first year, the format became the new standard when play resumed in 1995.

The Wild Card revolutionized the playoff landscape. In many seasons since, Wild Card entrants have gone on deep postseason runs, and several have even claimed the World Series title, proving that championship-caliber teams don’t always finish first in their divisions. Purists argue that, unlike some other sports where shorter seasons can create sample size anomalies, baseball’s grueling 162-game season ensures that the best team wins the division, and allowing other teams into the postseason dilutes the value of regular season games. While I understand that perspective, it’s difficult to argue that a 98-win second-place squad is not as deserving of a playoff position as an 88-win division champion.

The expanded playoff structure also keeps the regular season more engaging for casual fans, as more franchises remain in contention into September. Instead of fan bases checking out midsummer, teams that once would have been eliminated by a slow start or key player missing time could still dream of October relevance.

For better or worse, baseball did not stop tinkering there. In 2012, a second Wild Card was added to each league, turning the one-game playoff between Wild Card teams into one of the sport’s most dramatic and nerve-wracking spectacles. And in 2022, the postseason expanded even further, with six teams per league qualifying and the top two division winners earning first-round byes. That might have been a bridge too far. Any team with a winning record on Labor Day now has a realistic shot at the postseason. While that might generate interest in a few extra cities into September, it also feeds into the purists’ fears of a devalued regular season, as the third-best division winner effectively becomes a Wild Card team.

Over the course of my 63 years, what began as a streamlined two-division race has evolved into a multi-layered playoff gauntlet designed to maximize both excitement and revenue, and the glory of a World Series game played under a crystaline October sky has gone the way of the dinosaur.

I’m not against innovation, but in my heart of hearts, I wish baseball could find a better balance between honoring tradition and adapting to modern realities. Would a single World Series game played on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon significantly decrease viewership numbers? Do those extra Wild Card series really impact the bottom line of a hundred billion-dollar business? What has been lost by trying to squeeze every single penny out of the game?