Hardly Worth the Effort

Oh, those big, bad Minnesota Twins, the team that beat the White Sox thirteen times in nineteen meetings this season on the way to clubbing a major-league record 307 homeruns.  Well, they just got skunked by the Yankees in ALDS, three games to zip.  It hardly seems worth the effort.

That’s the problem with professional sports today—everything is geared to the postseason.  If you don’t make it, you suck.  And, if you don’t go deep in the playoffs, ditto.  This year’s big losers in the postseason will be the Brewers and A’s for losing the “play-in” game and the aforementioned Twins, for stinking up the joint and getting outscored 23-7 in the process.

Career and single-season records have always been the saving grace of baseball.  Hank Aaron and Pete Rose chased after the ghosts of Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, respectively, to the delight of fans; nobody cared if Aaron or Rose was going to play come October; what mattered was setting new records.  And, periodically, someone used to come along along to have a season like Steve Carlton in 1972, when the lefty recorded 27 of his team’s 59 wins.  Or someone like Tony Gwynn or Ichiro Suzuki comes along, to challenge the .400 mark season after season.  Postseason hopes never overshadowed regular-season performance.

Now, though, the emphasis is on getting there, gutting the team today to make the postseason tomorrow.  Well, the Twins did a quick-gut job and it worked splendidly, until October rolled around.  How are fans supposed to feel other than let down?  What does the front office do to keep faith with the disappointed multitudes?  Would anyone even notice the second coming of Rod Carew—or Kirby Puckett—if it wasn’t crowned with postseason glory?

Everybody wants to make the postseason, nobody wants to lose there and have their season deemed a failure.  What an odd place for fans, teams and sports to find themselves in.