MLB Changing Playoff Format

With spring training underway throughout Florida and Arizona, new Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred made a major announcement yesterday. After more than a century of the World Series featuring one team from the National League and one team from the American League, the Commissioner revealed a change in the playoff format effective for the 2015 season, so that teams from the same league could potentially meet in the World Series. Manfred said, "We want the best teams to compete for the World Series and revising the playoff format will help accomplish this goal. Seeing a Red Sox-Yankees or a Dodgers-Giants World Series would be amazing. Think of the ratings!" There were unconfirmed reports that Manfred then jumped into a Scrooge McDuck money pit.

The playoffs will still consist of six division winners and two Wild Card teams from each league. The one-game Wild Card round will also remain the same as will the divisional round. The major change occurs once baseball gets to the final four. Instead of an American League Championship Series and a National League Championship Series, the final four teams will be reseeded based on the regular season record. Here's an example of what could occur this season:

AL East Division Winner: Boston Red Sox
AL Central Division Winner: Kansas City Royals
AL West Division Winner: Los Angeles Angels
AL Wild Card Teams: Toronto Blue Jays & Detroit Tigers

NL East Division Winner: Miami Marlins
NL Central Division Winner: Chicago Cubs
NL West Division Winner: Los Angeles Dodgers
NL Wild Card Teams: Washington Nationals & Pittsburgh Pirates (yes again!)

Wild Card round: Pirates & Tigers advance

Divisional round:

Angels defeat Tigers
Red Sox defeat Royals
Cubs defeat Pirates
Marlins defeat Dodgers

Still with me here? Now, instead of the two league championship series, this would be the next round based on the regular season record:

Angels (100 regular season wins) vs. Marlins (92)
Cubs (96) vs. Red Sox (98) - Now this would be a fun series!

Of course, there's always a chance that things could backfire. Instead of having the teams with the two best records, you could have a Cubs-Miami World Series.




(Yes, I made this entire thing up just for the Back to the Future II reference. However, would you be surprised if the new Commissioner came up with some type of proposal to change the playoffs?)

Where Would You Time Travel?

Let’s have some fun. In today's scenario, you have access to a time machine where you can travel to one place anywhere in the past. Let’s pretend that this is like Back to the Future where Marty McFly goes to the past for a short period of time, but you’re unable to impact the future. Therefore, you can’t prevent 9-11 or the Kennedy assassination, although if can somehow find a future Sports Almanac, use it wisely. For this example, let's say that you go back in time at your current age. You can't go back to high school and all of a sudden you're 17 again. If you go back to the time of your high school years, you are still 35 (assuming that you are 35 today). So where and when would you go?

Without putting as much thought into this as I would have liked, I would pick either Pittsburgh during the 1960 World Series or Berlin when the Wall came down in 1989. Both joyous events that took place in the not too distant past. I probably wouldn't do very well going back too far like during the end of the Revolutionary War since there was no television, air conditioning or fast food restaurants. It would be tough enough traveling back to 1960 and 1989 without the internet!