Mailbag: What if baseball were more like college football?

Each week during the college football season, national analyst Chris Dufresne will burn a timeout to answer questions and exchange opinions. You can email him at chris.dufresne@latimes.com and reach him on Twitter: @DufresneLATimes.

Unbuckling the mailbag:

Question: I was just thinking if baseball had a four-team playoff like college football, no way the Giants play the Royals in the World Series.

@fifilarouche

Answer: I like the way you think. Remember, though, baseball for decades took only the two top teams — the American and National League champions.

It was just like the Bowl Championship Series!

Also, the Cincinnati Reds got robbed by the system long before USC football did in 2003.

The 1981 Reds had the best record in baseball but missed the playoffs in a strike-shortened season because league executives made up the rules as they went along.

This year, you’d think a fictional College Baseball Playoff committee would put a premium on winning your division.

The Giants and Royals, as wild cards, would have a chance only if they played in the Southeastern Conference West.

Applying the football playoff to baseball this year would produce fabulous games and television ratings.

These were baseball’s four best records: Angels (98-64), Baltimore (96-66), Washington (96-66), Dodgers (94-68).

The Angels would be seeded first and play the Dodgers at the Rose Bowl. Finally a Freeway Series!

Both franchises are accustomed to playing baseball in football stadiums. The Dodgers started at the Coliseum after they moved from Brooklyn. The Angels for years shared Anaheim Stadium with the Rams.

The other semifinal would pit Baltimore and Washington at the Sugar Bowl. Every fat-cat politician in Washington, D.C., would be trying to get a dinner reservation at New Orleans’ Commander’s Palace.

The semifinal winners would meet for the title at Jerry Jones’ stadium in Texas.

Sorry to say two divisional winners, Detroit and St. Louis, would be left out of the playoff. But this would be no different than two major conference football champions getting left out this year if independent Notre Dame makes the four-team field.

We’ll place the San Francisco Giants in a really good major bowl, the Fiesta, against the Kansas City Royals. Hey, it’s not the World Series, but every player will receive a complimentary bag of tortilla chips.

Q: I NEVER send these emails but I’m tired of you talking heads agreeing with the call without really doing your homework. I love your work but this time your opening comments in Monday’s article are just dead wrong.

Patrick McDivitt

Notre Dame, 1982

A: I get it. You love my work but not my homework?

At least you had the guts to state you are making your case as a graduate of Notre Dame. I understand that Irish fans are upset over the pass interference call that cost the Irish a win over Florida State.

I think most of the free world wanted that touchdown to stand so as to give us a respite from Florida State and Jameis Winston.

I can’t remember a franchise that was so universally loathed.... Enron?

I was having fun Monday with the fact that Notre Dame practically invented the forward pass a hundred years ago but couldn’t execute a simple pass and catch from the Florida State 2-yard line.

You can argue forever about the pass interference call. Teams run that pick play all the time and don’t get that called. Notre Dame’s problem was that it did not camouflage an illegal play well enough by making sure the receivers acted like they were receivers on the play.

And I was ready to listen to an opposing argument until former Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz, the biggest Irish homer this side of Rudy, went on the air and said the Atlantic Coast Conference officials made the right call.

If Holtz said the refs got it right, I figured the refs got it right.

Q: I guess like ole Herbie (Kirk Herbstreit), you did not notice that the Notre Dame receiver was grabbed at the snap of the ball.... Last thing I would expect is a guy from L.A. to accuse someone of being a snowplow. You wouldn’t know a snowplow from Traveler the Trojan horse.

Gary Conti

A: Just because I live in Los Angeles doesn’t mean I’ve never seen a snowplow. Did you know I have covered five Winter Olympics for the Los Angeles Times, starting with Lillehammer in 1994? It was so cold, Norwegians would come to the outside skiing events carrying Frisbee-like discs. They were to stand on so their boots didn’t become Popsicles.

I didn’t have one the first day and turned into a human 50-50 bar.

Q: You really need to give this line a rest about Texas Christian being “victimized” by the interference call toward the end of the Baylor game. This call was consistent with the way Big 12 officials have been calling games in recent weeks.

Robert Vickrey

A: I may have used the wrong word in describing the call that led to Baylor’s clinching field goal in a 61-58 win.

What I meant to say was TCU got “robbed.”

Q: Why do you always point out Coach [Bill] Snyder’s age? You’ll be old ... yourself in the very near tomorrow.

Leon Morales

A: I point out Kansas State coach Snyder’s age because 75 years old is how old he happens to be. And while he is undoubtedly one of the best coaches of his generation, Snyder almost takes pride in being a first-class grouch.

A few of us national reporters tried to visit him the week before the Nebraska game during his breakout season of 1998. We got to Manhattan and discovered the practice field was protected by barbed wire and that Snyder would not have time to see us.

Kansas State beat Nebraska but suffered a devastating defeat to Texas A&M in the Big 12 title game in St. Louis. I was at that game too. Snyder compared the defeat to a death in the family.

He’s a great coach, but he’s different.

Q: With all the football carnage recently and both Mississippis bound to lose, does a potential two-loss Pac-12 Conference team make the playoffs?

@Crudemeisters

A: It’s a longshot but my two-loss bet would be on USC. The Trojans already lead the Pac-12 South and potentially could play top 10 Notre Dame and Oregon in consecutive weeks to end the season.

USC also needs Arizona State to lose one more Pac-12 game to open a Trojans path to the South title.

USC could be a decent two-loss candidate if its only defeats were six points at Boston College and on a Hail Mary pass against ranked Arizona State.

Q: Of course the Gators were No. 1 in 2008.

David Reid

A: Understanding Florida defeated Oklahoma for the 2008 BCS championship, I was still surprised our mock committee slotted the Gators No. 1 in our rankings. Oklahoma was No. 1 in the final BCS standings with its only defeat against Texas at the Cotton Bowl.

Florida lost at home to a Mississippi team that lost to Wake Forest and Vanderbilt in 2008.

That speech Florida quarterback Tim Tebow made after the Mississippi loss was, obviously, powerful!

Q: This is what insomniacs do: This week’s Associated Press top 10: Combined won-loss record: 60-7; record at home/neutral site: 45-1; record on the road: 15-6. Only two teams have played three true road games — Michigan State and Georgia. Notre Dame has played one road game: 0-1. Oregon is only team in top 10 with a home loss.

Jon Basalone

Brea

A: I love it when readers do research I should have done on my own. Except: You missed Mississippi State’s huge “true” road win at South Alabama!

Q: I keep thinking super conferences are inevitable, and the only thing I keep seeing to end “SEC dominance” is the evolution of what was once talked about in 2011: Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State finally joining the Pac to make it the Pac-16.

Kevin Marshall

A: I think that could happen and that Larry Scott might want to make that his last great act as Pac-12 commissioner. The Atlantic Coast Conference was the key to further expansion with schools such as Georgia Tech seemingly vulnerable to poaching. The ACC halted the momentum by getting all 14 members to sign to a “Grant of Rights” agreement. That means any school that leaves the ACC would have to pay any future broadcast rights back to the conference.

That pretty much stopped expansion in its tracks … for now.

chris.dufresne@latimes.com