In Summer of 62, Baseball Back as National Pastime

Remember all of the worrying that expansion would dilute baseball? Remember the concern that the wild-card playoff berth would cheapen the regular season?

These haven’t been hot topics of discussion lately. It turned out they were the best things that could have happened to the sport, leading to what its No. 1 enthusiast, Ernie Banks, calls “the most exciting year I’ve ever seen in baseball.”

Baseball doesn’t take quickly to change. But sometimes you need to be progressive to get back to the way things were.

Sort of like those retro ballparks popping up all over the place.

As expected, the addition of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays--the second wave of expansion in five years--brought some pitchers into the big leagues who weren’t ready. Some of them will never be ready. And some pitchers who should be drawing pensions are still taking the mound.

That’s the main reason so many people predicted Roger Maris’ single-season record of 61 home runs would fall this year.

But it didn’t seem to matter who threw the pitches. We locked into the home run race anyway. It generated interest in baseball that some thought would never happen again and restored the sport to the forefront of our minds.

Hard to believe baseball could knock the start of the NFL season and the U.S. Open off the front page of the sports section on Labor Day weekend. That’s exactly what happened, thanks to Mark McGwire’s record-smashing week.

On the McGwire front, it sure was nice to see him lighten up the last few weeks. The closer he got to Maris’ record and the larger the media contingent grew, the more McGwire seemed to enjoy himself. Perhaps his magical season should be subtitled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Throng.”

McGwire has been the most prolific, but far from the only astounding home run hitter this season. There was his friendly rival Sammy Sosa’s breakthrough season that could have Sosa topping Maris as well. Ken Griffey Jr. joined McGwire and Babe Ruth as the only players to hit 50 home runs in consecutive seasons.

There have been so many other good stories this year, such as the New York Yankees chasing the best record in major league history, David Wells’ perfect game, Kerry Wood’s 20 strikeouts and Eric Davis’ comeback from cancer.

But competition remains the essence of sports, and that’s where the wild card comes in. Without it, there would be only one race worth watching in the American League and none at all in the National League.

The first-place team has a double-digit lead over its closest contender in every division except the AL West, where the Angels lead the Texas Rangers by two games. Thanks to the wild card, Angels-Orioles and Rangers-Devil Rays aren’t the only games that matter tonight. Fans also have reason to care about the outcome of Detroit-Boston, Toronto-New York Yankees, Milwaukee-Chicago Cubs, New York Mets-Montreal and Colorado-San Francisco. All of those games involve teams in the wild-card hunt.

Not even the division leaders can afford to sit comfortably, now that baseball finally has come to its senses and given home-field advantage to the playoff team with the best record in each league.

It’s a basic concept that every other sport understands, and it only took baseball 30 years to get it. It would be absurd for the New York Yankees to have the best record in major league history and still have to play on the road.

In the National League, Atlanta, Houston and San Diego have to duke it out for the top record instead of resting their regulars and playing minor league call-ups. So the regular season now has more value, not less. It expands interest exponentially. Perhaps only one team gets that additional playoff spot, but three or four teams have something to play for in September.

So many bad things have happened to baseball under Commissioner Bud Selig’s watch that in this case he ought to be praised for what’s gone right.

Expansion and wild cards might make for an unlikely and unpopular explanation for the success of this season. But they sure sound better than androstenedione and creatine.