Major League Baseball has its problems. It has long since lost the battle for cultural primacy to the National Football League and, depending on the measure, may have slipped behind the National Basketball Association. The Houston Astros made news recently for registering an audience invisible to Nielsen ratings.
If the national pastime is dead, someone forgot to tell fans in Pittsburgh and Cleveland this week. Thanks to the league’s expanded playoff format, now in its second year, baseball was the talk of those two towns again, at least for one night. Last year MLB added a second Wild Card team to the playoffs in both leagues and instituted a pair of one-game playoffs between the Wild Cards. With 10 teams in the postseason instead of eight, fans in more markets would have more reason to stay engaged, while giving the league two new win-or-go-home games to sell. It was a simple idea from outgoing Commissioner Bud Selig. And it is working to plan.
