Are MLB Playoff Series Too Short?

Baseball is a game of attrition. The marathon season is a 162 game grind, and still the pennant race is a toughly fought battle down to the very last game. It's a fickle game that can see the best of teams go through a dire stretch, and the worst of teams, like say my Pittsburgh Pirates, steal a regular season series from serious contenders. So when it comes time for the post season, are 5-game series, or even 7-game series, too short?

The NFL season is 16 games long, with the playoffs a one game elimination. So the ratio for a playoff series is 16:1. Therefore a playoff match-up is 6% of the season. In hockey, it's an 82 game season to a 7-game series. 82:7, or about 8%. But the MLB post season 5-game series is a mere 5:162, or 3%. Which is the equivalent of having an NFL playoff game decided by only one half. Can such a short series really guarantee the best teams advancing, and eventually winning the World Series?

The World Series hasn't always been a 7-game series. For a short while they toyed with a 9 game series, but that was over 80 years ago. However, with twice as many teams advancing to the playoffs thanks to the 6 division alignment and the wild card, is it time for Major League Baseball to adopt longer playoff series?

Another Losing Season for the Pirates

I don’t complain about the Pittsburgh Pirates. I mean, not a lot at least. Usually when asked about them, I’ll mention how blessed Pittsburgh sports has been. Just in my time, I’ve celebrated a Steelers Super Bowl on the streets of Pittsburgh. As a kid I enjoyed Mario Lemieux and back-to-back Stanley Cups. I joyously danced around my living room after we won the Sidney Crosby draft lottery. We’ve seen our share of All-Star players and post season appearances.

But on the rare occasion that I’m being honest, I’ll tell you, I absolutely hate it. I hate not winning. The Pirates are wrapping up their 15th consecutive losing season. I don’t even remember what the Major League Baseball post-season feels like. Sure, I’ll tune in and follow the interesting series. I do my best to enjoy playoff baseball, but I’m sure I’d enjoy it more if the Pirates would make an appearance.

The other stuff, about Pittsburgh sports being blessed and all that, that’s just good karma. I shut my mouth, I take the losses, the unearned runs allowed, the José Bautista errors, the poor bats, the weak starting rotation, and the nonexistent bullpen. I take them, because I’m somewhat certain that at some point in the future we are going to turn this ship around. Someday we may make the playoffs, or even, dare I say, win the World Series. Though I’m not entirely sure how.

Ultimately, the blame has to fall on the owners bottom line thinking. The ownership group bought the team ten years ago for a measly $92 million, and the public paid $216 for the best stadium in baseball, PNC Park. Forbes now estimates the franchise is worth approximately $276 million. In return the Pirates organization has put what most closely resembles a minor league roster on the field. This season they will finish 3rd in the league in revenue, while 27th in team payroll and last in the National League.

It has become undeniably clear that only one thing guides decision making, and that’s the financial report. So as a fan, I just cross my fingers and hope that they’ll cash out and sell the franchise to someone who cares about fielding a competitive roster. Because they can hire a new head of baseball operations, and they could replace Jim Tracy, and it’s not going to have any effect on the Pirates playoffs chances. You can’t make a stone bleed, and you can’t take a $50 million dollar team to the playoffs. It’s just not possible.

But I’ll watch playoff baseball. And someone will be crowned the World Series champion. And I’ll try to forget the 2007 season. The temperature will fall. The ground will freeze. Thanksgiving will come and go. Then Christmas and New Years. Perhaps, I’ll be fortunate enough to be able to build a snowman. But eventually springs bound to return, and with it, baseball. And even with no evidence to support the hope, I’ll dream about it being the season we turn it all around. Because eventually we’ve got to put together a winning season, and this season could be it. I know I’m doing my part, I’m not complaining.

Another MLB Player Reported to Have Recieved Steriods

Rick Ankiel on Thursday. Troy Glaus on Friday. And last night, Orioles outfielder Jay Gibbons.

Sports Illustrated's Luis Fernando Llosa and L. Jon Wertheim reported Gibbons as latest player to be involved in the growing saga that has become Florida's Signature Pharmacy. Gibbons allegedly received HGH and steroids from the internet distributor from September of 2003 through May of 2004.

With each report of an MLB player's use of performance enhancing steroids and human growth hormone my interest in the season deflates. One who followed the Rick Ankiel story can't help but feel as if there is nothing to get excited about in baseball anymore.

To Ankiel's credit, he has come out publicly and owned up to using HGH. He has claimed they were prescribed by a license physician during recovery from reconstructive elbow surgery. However, unless Ankiel is a female suffering from Turner syndrome or has a growth hormone deficiency, it stands to reason he shouldn't have prescriptions for human growth hormones Saizen or Genotropin.

This is What Baseball Has Become

It was the feel good story of the year. Something to hold on to in a season that will forever be remembered for the mayhem that surrounded Barry Bonds breaking the all-time Major League Baseball home-run record. It was a story of perseverance and overcoming the odds. It personified what sports was all about. But it's not anymore. Now it personifies what baseball has become.

Eight years ago Rick Ankiel was the hottest pitching prospect in the nation. In 2000, his debut for the St. Louis Cardinals, Ankiel went 11-7 with a 3.50 ERA, 194 strike outs, and finished second in voting for the NL Rookie of the Year. The Cardinals won the Central Division and were matched up with the Atlanta Braves in the first round of the playoffs. And that's where it all began to fall apart for Ankiel.

Rick Ankiel got the call to start Game 1 against Greg Maddux and the Braves. He allowed a single and a double in the first two innings and gave up a couple walks, but he took the mound in the third with the Braves still off the board. In the third Ankiel threw 5 wild pitches, walked 4 batters and allowed 4 runs on 2 hits, before being replaced.

Despite his performance, the Cardinals swept the Braves, and advanced to the NL Championship series. Ankiel saw the mound again in Game 2 of the series, but 20 pitches into the first inning we was pulled. 5 pitches went past catcher, Eli Marrero, 2 of them ruled wild pitches.

In Game 5 of the series Ankiel was brought as a relief pitcher in the 7th inning. He faced only 5 batters, walking 2 and throwing 2 wild pitches. The Cards dropped game 5, and were eliminated from the playoffs.

After that, Ankiel's Major League career was essentially over. He made brief appearance with the Cardinals in 2001 season, but spent most of it in the St. Louis minor league system. He sat out the 2002 season with a left elbow sprain, and returned to the minors for 10 starts in 2003 before having season ending Tommy John surgery. Again he returned to the minors for the 2004 season, and eventually made a few relief appearances in the majors towards the end of September.

And that was it. It was an amazing story of an incredibly gifted young pitcher's collapse. Or at least that's how it was supposed to end. But instead Ankiel's returned to the minors for the 2005 season and announced he was transitioning from the mound to the outfield. He progressed through the next two seasons, and despite more injury trouble, he began working his way back up the Cardinals minor league system.

On the 9th of August, 2007, after posting impressive numbers for the St. Louis AAA minor league affiliate in Memphis, Rick Ankiel made his return to the Major Leagues. In the 7th inning with 2 runners on base, Ankiel hit a 3 run home run to right field. The first time a player had hit a home run as both a pitcher and a positional player in 50 years. Cardinals manager Tom LaRussa said short of the World Series victory, it was the happiest he had seen his ball club.

But it didn't end there, over the course of August Ankiel continued to impress. On the 11th he went 3-4 with 2 home runs, 3 RBIs. He drew a standing ovation from the crowd every time he stepped to the plate. On the 31st, with his team trailing by a run in the 6th inning, he hit his first career Grand Slam. Suddenly, with only a month left in the regular season, and after spending half the season in the minors, he became the favorite for the MLB Comeback Player of Year.

Last night against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Rick Ankiel went 3 for 4, with a double, 2 home runs, and 7 RBIs. And this morning as sports fans awoke a crossed the country to drink a cup of coffee and check out the happenings of the sports world, it should have been just another installment in the amazing uplifting story that his career has become. But it wasn't. Instead the leading baseball story was from a report published in the New York Daily News alleging Rick Ankiel had purchased a 12-month supply of the Human Growth Hormones Saizen and Genotropin in 2004 from a Florida physician under investigation by the Albany County District Attorney.

The most surprising aspect of the story is that it really shouldn't be that surprising. Sure, his head hasn't ballooned like that of alleged HGH user Barry Bonds. He doesn't look monstrous like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, or Rafael Palmeiro. He's 6'1", 210 pounds. But this is what baseball has become. This is what it's regressed to.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one to white-wash baseball past. I realize that Mickey Mantle wasn't one the best of guys. And I know Babe Ruth greatly benefited from the Yankees having the left field fence in at a ridiculous 295 feet. But there is something different about everything in the steroid era. There is a great unknown that has transformed even the most naive fans into cynics. Some optimists talk of the possibility of Alex Rodriguez surpassing Bonds in Home Runs like the record will be saved. But who is to say A-Rod isn't juiced? Currently, though on the Major League Baseball Banned Substance list, HGH isn't even tested for. Granted, outside of a vague allegation by Jose Canseco (who at the time was pimping his latest book), no one has offered any serious evidence pointing to A-Rod as a steroids user, so it would be surprising.

But, really, it shouldn't be. This is what baseball has become.