As a Boston Red Sox fan, there exists an overwhelming urge to complain that the New York Yankees had their 162nd game cancelled due to weather while Boston and the Chicago Cubs had to travel to Tampa freaking Bay to go play a meaningless game in which Roman Anthony got hurt and both teams had to travel ludicrous distances in three days to then go to their road Wild Card series. But I shall resist that urge, because it's stupid.
Ex post facto analysis is the core of sports media, but even in my significant anger about Game 1, I refuse that kind of argumentation. Both Boston and Chicago got destroyed in Game 1 of their Wild Card Series, leading many to point out how ridiculous it was that they were forced to play that game so far away from ... anything. But guys ... the game mattered competitively until late-late-late Saturday night, and both teams were already in Florida by the time they knew it wouldn't need to be played. MLB is not in the business of canceling games they have logistically organized to be played; people had purchased tickets, and both teams signed up for 162 games. The travel damage had already been done, and to complain about it is the mother of all sour grapes.
Game 162 didn't end up mattering, but it needed to be played until the 11th hour
If we need something to complain about, I've got us covered: how come MLB insists upon expanding their postseason to its maximum possible financial output but refuses to expand it enough to make it competitively sound? If we're doing a Wild Card series and not a Wild Card game, just make it best of five or seven games — why must we insist upon this torturous three-game format? Imagine if the Cubs get eliminated tonight and Pete Crow-Armstrong goes 0-4? After one of the greatest all-around season in MLB history, PCA would go 0-7 in two games and be out.
I would be fine with retracting the postseason to its older format and just have three division winners and ONE Wild Card team and get rid of this whole Wild Card round ... thing; it is patently absurd that a division winner has to play in one of these best-of-three farces, but I realize that MLB is not about to reduce its earning potential by scheduling fewer playoff games. So let's go full capitalism and make everything best of seven.
You'd be surprised how little the length of a series has to do with getting the "better team" to win, but I'm not even talking about that. I just want the series to feel like a playoff series rather than some sort of throw-in party trick that is supposed to be the distillation of a 162-game season. It's just brutal for the fans — and it doesn't feel like "the playoffs."
So Cubs and Red Sox fans (myself included) if you need to complain about something, complain about the format. Not that you played a scheduled game that you had already traveled to by the time it became uncompetitive. Even if Game 162 was played on the moon, that's no excuse to get beat that badly.
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