Playoff Baseball

[jerichoholicninja]

Another MLB season has come and gone and in a few weeks when the snow starts to fly I'll start pining for the 2016 season to start. I love baseball. I love playing it, I love coaching it, I love reading about it, I love watching it but I just can't get into playoff baseball. Even when the Brewers were in the playoffs in 2008 and 2011 I just couldn't get myself to be wholeheartedly interested in it. This past year I watched the least playoff baseball I ever have and didn't watch a second of the World Series which was only slightly less than last year when all I watched was the last half inning of game 7.

 

Why? The best answer I can come up with is that playoff baseball isn't how baseball is meant to be played. Like the old saying, it's a marathon not a sprint. The idea of a team's fate being decided by a random 5 or 7 game stretch just doesn't appeal to me and neither does the over the top, fake drama created by TV that playoff baseball gets.

 

Baseball is most interesting to me on any random summer weeknight when 30 teams are playing. Every night something unusual happens. You get a rookie from AA called up by a last place team to make a spot start and he shuts down a first place team. Some random record from over 75 years ago gets broken. There are rain delays and extra innings and sometimes both in the same game. There are brawls and arguments and ejections. There's a weird rule that no one knows existed that comes into play.

 

I've always felt that baseball is all about not worrying about what happened today because there's a game tomorrow. Playoff baseball isn't that. Playoff baseball is also usually cold. Baseball isn't meant to be played under 50 degrees.

 

That's all for my stupid rant. Bring on Spring Training 2016. I can't wait.

[pacopete4]

Baseball isn't meant to be played under 50 degrees.

 

I would've never played baseball then lol. It gets pretty chilly, even in summer months up in Superior, WI.

 

But I do agree to some extent with what you are saying. Baseball should've been completed at least 2 weeks ago. Bring back double header Sunday!

[3and2Fastball]

I loved the Postseason this year. Watched some amazing games.

[JimH5]

I really liked the postseason this year.

 

Could the young Cubs make such a jump? Could the Dodgers play up to their payroll? Could the Royals actually win that way? Could the Mets ride that pitching? Could the Jays outscore everyone?

 

It was really a lot of fun, and I really liked seeing important games played without the Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals & Giants.

[MadScientist]

I watched the postseason more this year than any other year in the last 10 (except when the Brewers were in it, and even then when the Brewers lost, I couldn't take watching it anymore). Far better story lines this year, and the teams I really didn't want to see win, lost out early.

 

As for "Every night something unusual happens", this postseason had more of that than any I can remember. When is the last time you saw an inside the park HR in the series? When is the last time you saw 3rd to home on a grounder after the runner was looked back (not counting your son's little league games). And what about the wild 8th inning in Toronto?

 

I'll grant that baseball is better when it is warmer, but beyond that and not having the Brewers in it, you couldn't ask for much more.