Bad ideas are contagious, especially popular ones.
Major League Baseball just expanded the number of teams that qualify for post-season glory from eight to ten. Yes, there are ethical calculations involved in this, whether baseball cares or not. Supposedly, questions of fairness were part of the reason for the change, though I doubt it—in pro sports, the engine of change is always profit. And whether the change results in more fairness or less depends on what you consider fair—or perhaps whether you are sleeping intents in various U.S. cities.
Sports is such a big part of our cultural consciousness that what the National Pastime calls fair and just cannot help but influence cultural standards. Before 1969, there were two leagues of eight, then ten, Major League teams, and the two teams with the best records in each league met in the World Series. It was a simple meritocracy, with just 10% of the teams being allowed to advance after the regular season. Oh, there was always complaining about how the rich Yankees got into the Series more often than not, while the Senators, Phillies, Astros and A’s never did, but nobody camped out in the middle of Manhattan to protest baseball talent disparity. If you lived in one of the smaller Major League cities you just scaled back expectations, that’s all. And if, by some miracle, you won, then victory was all the sweeter, because you had bucked the odds by being harder working, stronger, better.
Then baseball expanded to 12 teams, and split the leagues into divisions. Now there had to be play-offs, which meant a 50% greater chance of your team making the post-season. This was either ethical (lessening the unfairly unequal effects of superior resources on team success) or unethical (damaging the integrity of competition by making the best team have to play and defeat lesser teams it had already defeated during the season to get into the World Series.) Personally, I vote unethical for a scheme where not “enough” teams get to share in the riches and prestige of success, so the sports just lowers the bar and makes success less successful for the best, and easier to reach for the not-so-good. Baseball accepted the abandonment of a pure merit-based rewards system for the “fairer” sports equivalent of affirmative action. Coincidentally, Real affirmative action followed close behind.
Later, the leagues went to 14 teams, then 14 and 16, with three divisions and a Wild Card in each league. Now fairness was literally impossible. The three divisions meant that if all the good teams were in one division, a team worse the any of them could be a champion in the weaker divisions. The Wild Card meant that a team that had finished second during the regular season, encompassing 162 games, could still be crowned “World Champion” for having the best record in a maximum of 19 games. (Yes, I am aware of the irony that this is how my beloved Boston Red Sox finally won a World Series after 86 years) This isn’t fair, or logical; it doesn’t reward quality and talent. It does, however, “spread the wealth around,” and since there are always more fans of teams that aren’t really good enough be in the post-season than fans of the teams that genuinely deserve it, making it easier to be successful without having to be the best, most talented and hardest working was popular…meaning more ticket, merchandising and television revenue.
Now baseball had joined hockey, basketball and football as professional sports—where, do recall, America’s symbolic battles of right and wrong, us and them are fought all year-long—that had declared it good and just for long-term excellence and achievement to be over-ridden by short-term expediency and the need to mollify habitual also-rans. Does this make it easier for some members of the public to conclude that social justice consists of artificially limiting what one is allowed to achieve compared to his or her peers? I think it may. Traditionally, the American ideal of equal opportunity meant freedom to make the best of your circumstances, as fate, luck, and personal choice defined them. Now, like professional sports, opportunity is increasingly defined in America making sure the system the system is adjusted to make success attainable without superior achievement. The teams that spend the most money to improve their teams in baseball have to pay a “tax” to the teams that pay the least—even when those teams can afford to do more. I’ll leave the non-baseball analogy to you.
The new system? It is a classic example of integrity creep. The fact that the Wild Card system allowed a team to finish second and have essentially the same chance of winning the World Series as a division mate that finished first was proclaimed as unfair, which it always was—not so unfair that the game hesitated to adopt it, of course. The solution was to make the Wild Card less desirable by making the best second-place team have to get through an extra round of play-offs while the division-winners get a bye. That, however, required the addition of another second place team to play in each league (as well as balancing the leagues at 15 teams each.). In order to cure the unfairness (defined as “rewarding inferior performance to the disadvantage of superior achievement”) created by the system designed to be more fair (“fair” being defined as “inclusive”), Major League Baseball again increased inclusiveness, rewarding more inferiority, and further degraded competitive integrity. Where once no second place teams had a chance to win the World Series, now four do. Where once only one out of ten teams in each league were designated winners, now five out of fifteen are—30%.
This is called Fair. This is called progress.
No wonder OWS thinks they deserve more money regardless of what they have done to earn it.
Ethics Alarms 
I’ve noted that this concept has spread to interscholastic competition in the high schools. I guess that was inevitable!
All excellent points you make – baseball playoffs mirror a culture that punishes and disincentivizes success, and rewards and incentivizes failure.
I dislike how baseball’s wild card scheme has devalued success over the 162-game long haul, even to the point of making that success irrelevant.
I do like the outcome of the All-Star game determining which league has the home field advantage in the World Series.
I’d like to note that football is a bad example. In a 16 game season, more likely than not, the best team will not have the best record. It’s the nature of small sample sizes. There’s no integrity lost by including wildcard teams.
I think that’s valid, though even in 16 games, the in-division contests often if not usually make the best team obvious. You’ll agree that when we’re looking at New England or Miami-style undefeated teams for a whole season, making them play a Wild Card team from their own division is unfair, wouldn’t you?
What’s the difference between a wildcard team in their own division and a wildcard team in another division?
What if they already beat all the other teams in the playoffs and the champion from the other other league? Should we just award them the superbowl?
Also, where do you draw the line? Is it just 16-0 teams? What if a team is 15-1 with a loss to a team in the other conference.
Are we just going by which team is obviously best? Right now, the Ravens have swept their series with the Steelers, but the teams are both 7-3. Say we have a 13-3 Steelers and a 12-4 Ravens team. What then?
So long as the rules are outlined ahead of time and agreed upon, arguing about fairness is pointless. Arguing about the integrity of a champion based on a 16 game schedule and 32 teams is also silly, no matter which way is chosen.
Expecting “ethics” in baseball is a forlorn hope to begin with. The term, “World” Series, is a big fat lie from the beginning.
Where are teams from Puerto Rico, Japan, Mexico, etc.? They are not even allowed in eliminations — how can that be a “World” Series?
As to being “The National Pastime”, I think that term would be more accurately applied to football. In my not-so-humble opinion, the “fascination” of baseball is on a par with watching paint dry or watching grass grow.
As Patrick Henry observed, “If this be treason, make the most of it.”
Red Smith observed, “Baseball is dull to dull minds.” I think that is overly harsh, but there is a reason why baseball engages artists and intellectuals in ways that football cannot. It is a sport about individualism, order amidst chaos, classic American virtues and the resolution of dramatic tension. If “national pastime” means the sport that can most easily engage self-absorbed and busy Americans who only will take the time to devote one afternoon a week to their supposed passion, then I agree—football is it. If it means committing to dozens of individual fascinating dramas of anywhere from a month’s duration to a lifetime, and watching the various sagas unfold daily in unpredictable ways with invaluable life lessons attached over the course of a season, then baseball wins in a walk. There is nothing especially American about football, which is another one of dozens of “two teams try to score a goal by penetrating the other’s territory” games, except that football cripples its players with long-term brain damage. Some distinction. At least half of the supposedly “rabid” football fans I know can’t name half the players on their home team—football is a great game for ADD fans. Baseball fans not only know their current team, they can usually recall many teams past, because they lived and died with them. Football destroys brains, and baseball stimulates them.
Really, it’s no contest. Some day, if you’re lucky, you’ll find out. Come to a game with me. That almost always works.
Baseball is a team sport for people who work better on their own (or in very small groups), than together. 1-2, 4-6, maybe 1-3 and 2-3. Pretty much no other pairing needs to work together. Everything else is interchangable. It’s about perfection at the cost of flexibility.
I’m pretty sure that everything you said as a positive for baseball also applies to football. There is nothing in baseball with more artistry then an overload zone blitz and the personnel, protections, and routes to beat such. A receiver’s route tree (that might involve 10 decisions based on what they read of the defense in 5 seconds before the snap, and immediately after the snap) has no comparison in baseball. Intellectuals can definitely engage with football, but there’s more moving pieces, so it’s harder. If any sport is order amidst chaos, it’s football. While pro games are only played once a week, the entire week is used to break down the previous game and the upcoming matchup. A celebration of the intricacy of the sport. The dramas and sagas? Still unfolding daily. Still life altering. Every change at practice is a big deal, for the information that may be gleaned. Football is the MOST American of sports. Baseball is more similar to cricket than football is to any preexisting sport. Football players were working class heroes far more than baseball players. The early professionals didn’t just work in the “offseason”, but 5 days a week during the season. They were the community. Every time a baseball player is seen in a game, their name is plastered all over the stadium and the announcers have 5 minutes to talk about them. In football, there are more than double as many players, A constantly changing 11, and still, the fans in the cheap seats can spot when the 7th round rookie who showed promise on special teams comes in as the dime corner or the practice squad call up takes over at the nose. If any game is great for ADD fans, it’s Baseball. You just need to pay attention for 2 seconds out of every 30. Football fans do connect with their teams, and, just like baseball fans, the most dedicated to live and die by teams past. For someone who takes the time to understand it, watching football stimulates the brain as much, if not more than baseball.
Jack, I’ve got an extra ticket for the Ravens/Irsays game. I suspect that should work.
(All that said, baseball was my first sports love, and I still enjoy watching it and the occasional pick up game. Bad arguments are bad arguments no matter how just the cause.)
(Also, an anecdote about connecting to teams. My father is as peaceable and forgiving a person as you’ll find. Someone who has received a local MLK award, and deserved it. Someone who has spent more time and effort trying to bridge gaps — building a state-wide peer mediation conference from scratch on his own thin dollar, creating interfaith groups half way across the globe — than anyone else I can name. I was taught my whole life how to forgive, how to see the other side, how to understand. Everyone is due this benefit…except for Robert Irsay. In my father’s world, the Colts ceased to exist in 1984. I was 3 years old. To this day, they are still the Irsays. My father watches probably 100 Orioles games a year and dislikes the Yankees and the thousands of Yankees fans at Camden Yards, but a post 1983 Colts jersey in Baltimore? The pain is evident.)
Expecting “ethics” in baseball is a lost hope to begin with. The term, “World” Series was a big fat lie to begin with.
Where were the teams from Puerto Rico, Japan, Mex
Well, it certainly wasn’t a lie “to begin with,” now was it? The World Series began in 1901: tell me, what other countries had professional, or even amateur, baseball then? (Hint: the word begins with a Z.) And once an even has a name that is thoroughly imbedded in its traditions and the public consciousness, the fact that subsequent events render that name technically inaccurate cannot transform what was truthful into a lie. Miss Universe is a bit presumptuous, but until I see a qualified entry from Triton, it’s no lie.
As with most criticism of baseball, there is nothing more useful than half-truths and bad information.
Sorry about that double posting — call it a senior moment. Meanwhile, back at the ranch: I do not hate baseball; it just does not engage my interest.
The game that really bores me out of my socks is basketball. Funny thng is, back when I was in high school and college, Basketball was terribly important to me — but only so far as my own school’s team was concerned. Perhaps our interests change as life goes on.
“Perhaps our interests change as life goes on.” Yes. Basketball used to captivate my attention too. Watching it nowadays, I still find an entertaining combination of ballet and circus athletics – when it isn’t played with distracting brutality – which is to say, almost never. I now prefer to watch volleyball.
American football is wonderfully complex. Its routine collisions and impacts at the limits of human endurance trouble me. George Will’s summation of football as “violence punctuated by committee meetings” does as well as any to explain my preference for baseball.
Except for pitchers when at their best, in baseball games you can be assured that one player is not going to dominate the stage. That (domination of the stage by one player)tempts me more than anything else in any team sport toward boredom and cynicism. Mario Cuomo talked about the justice of baseball, and he should know well by his own time as a pro player. Despite his distortion (about baseball history, that is: “a 19th century pastoral game”), George Carlin’s expressive comparison of baseball and football makes me laugh every time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmXacL0Uny0
All sports preferences and takes on culture aside, I’ll probably never cease feeling tortured about the ethics of wild cards. Where opportunities are so exactly numbered, limited and foreknown for a set of competing, proven overachievers to prove “who’s best,” it seems even the most almighty computer is inadequate at facilitating best-of-fairness (see “BCS standings”).
2nd sentence 3rd paragraph: meant to say “That (domination of the stage by one player),…tempts me…”
Fixed it. I thought there was something amiss….
Many thanks!