Selig wants extra wild-card for playoffs

The Baltimore Orioles came to chilly, rainy Yankee Stadium Tuesday night as a first-place team. They left as one, too, after the game was postponed.

The Orioles haven't made the playoffs since 1997, when Tuesday night's scheduled starting pitcher Chris Tillman was 9 years old. They reside in a big-money division with the Yankees and Red Sox. They probably won't be in first place when the season ends.

But if commissioner Bud Selig has his way, the Orioles and teams of their ilk will have an easier road to the playoffs starting next season. Selig last week told Chris Russo of SiriusXM radio that adding an extra wild card team in each league and extra round to the postseason is possible starting in 2012.

"We're working on that," Selig said. "I'm not sure where we are on that. I like the idea, but we've got a lot of details to work out."

Selig has proved during his never-ending commissionership that when he likes an idea, it eventually will get done. The original wild card was his baby, as was interleague play. With the Collective Bargaining Agreement set to expire in December, adding two more playoff teams will be on the table. Expect it to get done.

We brought this idea to Orioles manager Buck Showalter Tuesday night during his pregame news conference in the wind-swept visiting dugout.

"Let me think about that," Showalter said.

Then he did. He thought about it for about five seconds. He even furrowed his brow a little. The man learned a thing or two during his stint on "Baseball Tonight" about building drama.

"Would the fans like it?" he finally said. "It might help in our division a little bit. Like most of those things, it revolves around what the fans want to see. Schedule, interleague play and all that kind of stuff, we know it's not a level playing field."

It's not, and it hasn't been since the first wild cards were introduced in 1995 -- won by the Yankees in the AL. Interleague play came around two years later and is chiefly responsible for the unbalanced, unfair and unfathomable schedule that had the Yankees and Mets both home Tuesday night (and both rained out) and the Orioles facing the Yankees and Red Sox 36 to 38 times a season.

Showalter's Orioles can't match the Yankees or Red Sox in revenues. So the extra wild card would seem to be a boon to Baltimore and Tampa and Toronto as they battle the AL East behemoths.

"We've got our sights on trying to be competitive at the top," Showalter said. "If and when [an extra wild card] happens, to kind of give into that part of it? Not yet. But let me think about that."

Really, what's there to think about? As Yankees centerfielder Curtis Granderson said of the postseason, "Once you get in, anybody can win," and the champion San Francisco Giants certainly proved that last season.

Granderson said he thinks "the consensus is pretty much 50-50" among players. Granderson's unintended Yogi-ism aside, union chief Michael Weiner has said, "There is sentiment among a substantial segment of the players to consider expanding the playoffs."

Said Granderson: "One of the complaints you hear right now is the playoffs go too long. I wouldn't be against it if we could somehow keep it in the same amount of time or quicken it up."

CC Sabathia said he thought the system was fine the way it was. But, he added, "That's me saying that sitting in the position of playing for the New York Yankees."

Second wild card fever. For better or worse, you're probably going to get a chance to catch it.