Lengthy baseball regular season not worth the trouble

If it was 1954, and I was watching Mantle instead of Manny and Berra instead of Bernie, last weekend's Red Sox/Yankees series might have meant something. But baseball has changed (irrevocably, I fear) in the last 50 years, and the changes have rendered the regular season all but meaningless.

Back in the glory days of baseball (1919-1968 as any true historian would tell you), the regular season was all that mattered. The team with the best record in each league would meet in the World Series. Now to be fair, baseball has expanded greatly in the last 40 years and there are nearly twice as many teams as there once were.

Detractors may also point out that there are playoffs in the other major sports, and the playoffs are the most exciting part of the season. Those points I cannot argue with. The playoffs are the most (only?) exciting part of both the hockey and basketball seasons, even though more than half the teams qualify in each league.

But there is a fundamental difference between baseball and the other three. Basketball in the regular season and basketball in the playoffs is the same game. You send out your five best players each night and have to win three-of-five or four-of-seven games to move on. The same is true for hockey and the same for football, except football has just one game rather than a series.

But in baseball you don't just send out your best players in every game because pitchers cannot pitch everyday. During the regular season, one of the most integral components of success is pitching depth. These days, every team (except the Rockies for a stretch this year when they went with four) uses a five-man rotation. A staff that goes only three-deep with talent will find it exceedingly difficult to compete over 162 games. On the other hand, a team whose fifth starter can win 10 games will almost always find its way into the playoffs.

And that's when everything changes. The playoffs do not reward the best team over the length of the season because they put a different emphasis on what is needed. The common cliche is that 'pitching and defense win in the playoffs.' That's only half-true. In reality, two good pitchers and defense win in the playoffs. If you don't believe me, ask a Yankees fan. In 2001, Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling combined for all four wins as the Diamondbacks downed the Yanks 4-3. For being known as the ultimate team sport (a label which Barry Bonds continues to defy), two players seemed to singlehandedly dominate the World Series.

More than that, during the regular season teams play everyday with a day off about once every two weeks. In the playoffs, in order to put as many games in prime time as possible, teams generally play only every other night. How is that the same game? If pitching is supposed to matter, make it matter! Make the fourth (and fifth) starters count for something.

So I sat there this weekend, not watching the Yanks series — not because I don't love them, but because it didn't matter. We are going to make the playoffs no matter what, and so are the Red Sox. And regardless of what places they finish in, they will not play each other in the first round.

If it was fifty years ago, I would have been thrilled that my team took two of three from its hated rivals and would now be in prime position to win the pennant. That is no longer the case, and the talent, depth and hard work that got the Yanks into this position may not be what is needed to win it all.