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This Day In Sports…March 2, 2012:
For the first time in 17 years, Major League Baseball expands its playoff format, going to 10 teams by adding a second wild-card berth to each league. The change created an intense new one-game win-or-go-home Wild Card Round in the American League and National League between the teams with the best records who were not division winners. The additions meant 10 of the 30 MLB teams would get into the playoffs, still fewer than any of the other major professional leagues.
The number is now 12, as the majors added two more wild cards berths in each league and created best-of-three Wild Card Series in 2022 (no more single-game drama). At 40 percent, MLB still has the lowest percentage of teams make the postseason among the major sports. With the addition of the play-in round five years ago, the NBA has the highest percentage, with two-thirds of its franchises qualifying for the postseason. The NHL is at 50 percent and the NFL at 44 percent.
The MLB Playoffs began in 1969 with just four teams when the American and National League Championship Series were created, as each league expanded to 12 teams and divided into Eastern and Western Divisions. New York’s “Miracle Mets” famously won the 1969 World Series after sweeping the Atlanta Braves in the first NLCS. Until then, teams had to win the league pennant outright during the regular season to reach the World Series.
The playoffs weren’t expanded until 1994, creating a wild card from each league when they were first divided into three divisions. The National League had added the Colorado Rockies and the Florida Marlins in 1993. This San Francisco Giants fan always wondered why the three divisions weren’t created in 1993. Why? Because the Giants won 103 games that year but finished one game behind the Braves in the NL West—and were left out of the playoffs. At any rate, the wild cards didn’t actually debut until after the 1995 season due to the 1994 players strike.
Since wild cards were introduced into the MLB Playoffs, eight such teams have gone on to win the World Series—the 1997 Florida Marlins were the first. They were followed by the 2002 Anaheim Angels, the 2003 Marlins, the 2004 Boston Red Sox (who broke “The Curse of the Bambino”), the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals, the 2014 Giants, the 2019 Washington Nationals and the 2023 Texas Rangers.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
