I May Need to Pay Attention

I May Need to Pay Attention

Oh, what a glorious year it is to be Mark Wentz: Baseball Fan. Most years, by the time the Major League Baseball playoffs begin, I’ve totally lost interest. What with the burnout of well over 100 games per team and the start of football season, I’m ready to move on. This year is no different. Except that I happened upon the playoff schedule this year and noticed something I don’t recall having seen before. The Minnesota Twins, the Oakland Athletics, and the St. Louis Cardinals are all in the playoffs. So? It just so happens that these are the elite teams in terms of being my favorite teams to watch.

I have elite teams in every major sport; teams I follow, teams for which I root in thick and thin, teams for which I’d buy fathead wall stickers if I had the money. In baseball, it’s the Twins, A’s, and Cardinals (though, not necessarily in that order). In football, it’s the Vikings, Raiders, Chargers, and Bills (NNITO). In basketball, it’s the Timberwolves, Lakers, and Celtics (NNITO). In hockey, it’s another channel.

So, back to baseball, instead of ignoring the playoffs like normal, I should pay attention to them. How often does it happen that all of your elite teams end up in the playoffs?

In basketball, with most of the league’s teams in the playoffs, it’s an embarrassment if they don’t. I think the hockey playoff tourney is so big that they include neighborhood pee-wee leagues.

In football, my elite teams have not all been in the playoffs at the same time since the 1980 season. That’s before I started watching football and before most people born after 1982 were even alive.

But baseball? Good golly, when was the last time the Cardinals, Twins, and A’s have all been in the playoffs at the same time? 2002!

Wait! What? 2002? Perhaps I should have done research before I started writing this.

But, actually, it goes a bit further than that this year. If I were to pick my favorites in each division and one wild card (as is prescribed by the playoff system in baseball), here would be my playoff line up: Twins, A’s, Orioles, Indians, Cardinals, Mets, Dodgers, Cubs. Sound familiar? Of those 8 teams, 5 are in the playoffs. And, of the 8 teams for which I’d refuse to root, none are in the playoffs.

In short, there is no reason I should not watch the MLB playoffs this year.

I mean other than I should be studying and I should be paying attention to the Toddler of Dependence. My wife might want me to talk to her. The leagues are juiced. Tax dollars are drained to pay for stadiums for rich folks. Money spent on tickets would be better spent buying mosquito netting in Africa.

But it’s a great year for me to be a baseball fan!

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The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not neccessarily reflect those of the rest of the family.