It’s amazing how fast a 162 game season can fly by! The Major League Baseball playoffs start this week with two single elimination games on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Tuesday’s game is between the Oakland Athletics and the Kansas City Royals at 8 p.m. ET on TBS. Wednesday’s is between the San Francisco Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN. Whether you’re a diehard fan or someone, like me, who tunes in just for the playoffs, here are some resources for watching and enjoying playoff baseball.
Why do people like baseball?
Written by early contributor to Dear Sports Fan, the pseudonymous Dean Russell Bell:
There’s real beauty in a ball game – there’s nothing like the sound of a ball hit solidly by a wooden bat; or watching the mechanics of a smoothly turned double play, and the way incredibly skilled players make it look so effortless; or the one on one duel between pitcher and batter, or the sheer improbability of a human hitting a tiny orb moving at 95 miles an hour – let alone hitting it hundreds of feet.
Plus, choosing to watch a baseball game isn’t that much of a commitment:
You could do anything while watching a baseball game – knit, iron, write the great American novel. It’s the most easily-casually watched sport there is.
How do the Major League baseball playoffs work?
This is a quick walkthrough the format of the baseball playoffs. It’s a confusing playoff system because it has, “the most variety of format of all of the major sports’ playoffs. The MLB playoffs consist of four rounds and three different formats.” If this sounds like it doesn’t make sense, that’s because it really doesn’t. Towards the end of this post, I write a little bit about how these playoffs are unfair to players, teams, and fans.
What’s the difference between the two leagues in baseball?
Tuesday night’s game is played under a different set of rules from Wednesday’s game. This post explores what the differences are and how they got that way. It’s a handy companion for making sense out of the two sets of rules and their implication on tactics:
Mostly what it does is make it less likely for American League teams to win 2-0. So, they tend to build their entire line-ups based on this fact. They concentrate on finding bigger, stronger, slower guys who can hit home-runs. The fact that they can play these guys in a game without needing them to run around and try to catch the ball helps too! The National League teams, on the other hand, feel like they might be able to win with fewer runs, so they tend towards smaller, faster players who can steal bases, bunt, and play excellent defense.
Keep an eye out for more about baseball in the next week.