Wild Card Wanderings

Major League Baseball's marathon pulls into Station 162 next Sunday.  In the old days of One League, one team directly to the World Series, the Red Sox would have a three game lead over the A's, 3 1/2 over the Tigers.  The Braves would have game and a half lead over the Cardinals in the National League.  Please mind that tonight's games have not completed, so these numbers might be different when you wake up tomorrow.

The long time status of two Divisions to the League Championship Series would be The Red Sox holding the 3 1/2 game lead over the Tigers in the East, with the A's having already clinched the West.  The National League East would have the Cardinals leading Pittsburgh by 2, and the Braves leading the West by 3 games over the Dodgers.

Even the three Division, one Wild Card scenario would be Boston, Detroit, and Oakland looking good, with Tampa and Cleveland in a dead heat, Texas a half game back of both. Baltimore, Kansas City, and The Evil Empire fading.  National League would be Atlanta, St. Louis and Los Angeles, with Cincinnati and Pittsburgh in a dead heat, one of them going home early.  In other words, the same scenario that exists today with two Wild Cards.

My point in all this supposin'?  Baseball actually did something right adding more Wild Card teams.  In a monopoly which, for the most part, loses money, a smart business decision is as hard to come by as a fresh armed pitcher this time of year.  Interest has been stirred in a lot of markets, shown by the increased number of teams mentioned in each paragraph above.  Giving the incentive of October baseball should put more people in the seats...

Tell that to Cleveland where 17,000+ saw the Indians stay in a dead heat with the Rays, winning 2-1 over the Astros.  How about Kansas City, where 21,000+, less than half capacity, saw the Royals stay alive with a 2-1 win on an always exciting bases loaded walk in the eighth.  I might be able to excuse Kansas City: a lot of their fanbase may have believe they were mathematically eliminated in early May.

Every other game drew at least 29,000+, lowest figure being the Cubs and their second division lineup.

What is the issue?

Baseball is still the game it always was, but the heroes speak with a myriad of accents, some of which we cannot understand.  Their questionable muscles bulge in ways God didn't create, questioning the authenticity of the game.  I have trouble with that argument because the words that come out of most football players mouths are sometimes just as difficult to understand.  Maybe the players, awash in cash, have lost sight of the fans.  Maybe the owners forgot a business axiom: you can shear a sheep for a lifetime, but you gotta feed the sheep.

Maybe the bread and butter got lost in the words of a Little League coach that blew the questionable kid out of baseball and into another interest.  The main reason kids quit playing Little League Baseball is rarely the game or the kids: it's the adults.  Little League had the stats to back that number up as recent as two years ago.  Kids are different that they were a generation ago:maybe they'd rather play X-box than spend a night at the ballpark.

Either way, we're all missing a pretty good show.

So...am I off base?