Baseball adds extra wild card, alters schedule
Boston's Marco Scutaro, right, reacts after being tagged out at home plate by Baltimore Orioles catcher Matt Wieters in the eighth inning. Boston lost the game and the American League wild card to Tampa on this night. (Sept. 28, 2011) Credit: AP
Major League Baseball officially announced the addition of an extra wild-card team in each league for the 2012 season and beyond on Friday, making a tweak for 2012 only to account for a scheduling issue.
Because the schedule had been drawn up without leaving space for an "elimination game," as the one-game wild-card faceoff in each league is being termed, the Division Series is reverting to a format in which the lower seed will host the first two games, followed by the higher seed hosting the next three. That format, which eliminates a travel day, existed for the first three years of the LDS. A 2-2-1 format was adopted for 1998.
"I greatly appreciate the MLBPA's cooperation in putting the new postseason format in place this year," commissioner Bud Selig said in a statement. "The enthusiasm for the 10-team structure among our clubs, fans and partners has been overwhelming. This change increases the rewards of a division championship and allows two additional markets to experience playoff baseball each year, all while maintaining the most exclusive postseason in professional sports."
Said Michael Weiner, the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association: "The players are eager to begin playing under this new format in 2012 and they look forward to moving to full realignment in 2013. Our negotiating committee and the owners' representatives worked hard to develop a schedule that should make for fairer competition and provide our fans with a very exciting season."
In all likelihood, the wild-card elimination game in each league will be played Friday, Oct. 5, two days after the end of the regular season. That would leave Oct. 4 for tiebreaker games. The Division Series would begin Oct. 6 and Oct. 7.
It creates some potentially messy scenarios, particularly with division winners opening series on the road. Next year, with more time, baseball can deliver a cleaner schedule.
This marks the first change to baseball's postseason schedule since 1994, when baseball expanded to three divisions in each league and added the wild card -- although, thanks to the players' strike, the new format didn't begin until 1995.
Last year, the extra wild cards would have been Boston in the American League and Atlanta in the National League.
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