The final month of the baseball season brings with it the newfound reality of the wild card races in both major leagues. In this case, the term “newfound” is used to distinguish this route into the playoffs from those which many of us became accustomed to seeing during our youth. These newer playoff eligibility rules, by which I am essentially referring to the wild card system, are the same rules that the baseball purists have been railing against since the wild card’s inception in 1995. More precisely though, the wild card was first instituted in 1994, not 1995, but due to the strike that year — a work stoppage nearly as infamous as Michael Jackson’s rumoured thirst for the soft flesh of underage boys — the present-day playoff system was not put into effect until the following year. I am not a purist, and have always welcomed the introduction of innovative changes to the game. There is never any harm in innovation, in fact, it would feel more inappropriate to not try out a new playoff eligibility system before lining up, swords drawn from battered sheaths, ready to pounce and thrust the blade deep into the squelchy hearts of those who would stand ready to defend the wild card’s existence.

The number 90, refering to a quantity of wins, is usually cited as the amount that is minimally required for entry into the postseason. Mathematically, this means that even a middling .500 team can remain alive and active in the playoff hunt for all except the last couple of weeks. For example, this is precisely the situation that the New York Mets have been in for the entire season. Mediocre teams that randomly streak on the positive side of the W-L ledger can find themselves only a few games behind their rivals well into September, a description that applies very well to the recent play of the Minnesota Twins and Washington Nationals. Who are we to argue with their dubious talent in the face of their arithmetic hope of remaining in the playoff hunt, even though their chances of winning the World Series are no better than Randy Johnson’s in a beauty contest?

While watching Oakland come back for a spirited win against Seattle this past Wednesday, as the Mariners bullpen crumbled more swiftly and readily than a burnt slice of stale toaster pastry, I realized four things:

1) New York and Cleveland, who are Oakland’s main rivals for the final wild card spot, both have an absurdly easy schedule down the stretch compared to the A’s, who still must face both of them along with the first-place Red Sox, first place Angels, and the vacillating Twins

2) Surely this must make Oakland the underdog in the AL wild card race

3) Their best chance of making the playoffs is to beat the Angels for their division title

4) I should have realized all of this in May

I won’t hazard a guess at predicting what will happen in the NL wild card “race”. I use the word “race” with the inverted commas because the non-division leading teams that are currently scampering toward the postseason are hardly racing for anything. Whatever those teams are doing, it barely ressembles a mad dash of talented teams getting hot at the right time and putting their feet down on their rivals necks en route to claiming their rightful spot in the playoff picture. Rather, their “stretch run” (I feel that it’s best to use the inverted commas yet again with respect to that phrase) carries a closer ressemblance to a gathering of overweight mice wandering aimlessly through a maze only for the amusement of a gaggle of bored scientists. This NL “wild card race” is one that nobody appears to be interested in winning. As a result, I cannot possibly bring myself to appear interested in commenting on it. When those teams are finally ready to play some baseball, then they’ll earn my attention faster than Sidney Ponson and David Wells competing in a dead sprint to a buffet table in order to claim the last prune danish.