Baseball

[smc]

Nick Cafardo, one of the outstanding baseball writers for The Boston Globe, writes this morning that baseball owners will be discussing adding teams to the playoffs -- something that would have to be negotiated with the players union -- as early as 2012.

According to Cafardo, the thinking is to add an additional wild card in each league, have them play one game or a 3-game series to determine which one advances, and then commence with the division, league, and World Series as they exist now.

There are implications for the regular season. The head of the players union, Michael Weiner, told the Globe a few months ago and just reiterated to Cafardo that "some of the players have said that either we could shorten the regular season because the regular season's too long, or we should shorten the regular season to accommodate an expanded post-season."

There are serious revenue issues for owners if the regular season is shortened, so that's probably a non-starter. So, the likely outcome is baseball well into November, if this idea is adopted.

Commissioner Bud Selig has long stated his pride in the fact that baseball has the fewest number of playoff teams, making it the toughest sport in which to make the post-season.

In my opinion, this is a terrible idea.