In 1993, baseball owners voted to add a round to their playoffs and start a wild-card system for getting in. It was a near-unanimous vote.
A few years ago, the Boston Red Sox were a wild card team. They came from down 0-3 against the Yankees in the ALDS to win eight straight games and the World Series in dramatic fashion. It also provided some magic for one of my favorite movies, Fever Pitch.
This year, the Colorado Rockies won 15 of their last 16 games, only to tie the San Diego Padres for the wild card spot. The Rockies and Padres played a tiebreaker game, which itself was tied at the end of the regulation nine innings. In fact, it took 13 innings for the Rockies to win that game in a come-from-behind fashion. The Rockies have won all seven of their games since then and will open the World Series next week.
Nobody can say the Wild Card is a failure.
When I said in paragraph 1 that the vote by the baseball owners was near-unanimous, I wan't kidding. The tally was 27-1. That one owner said "I made my arguments and went down in flames. History will prove me right.”
That owner was then-Texas Rangers owner George Walker Bush.
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