Nov 19th 2008 4:00PM by Josh Alper (author feed)
Anytime a powerhouse regular season team (I’m looking at you, Cubbies) gets knocked out in the baseball playoffs, you’ll hear someone say “Anything can happen in a short series!” It’s true. A bad start from your ace, a mis-timed error and, whoosh, you’re playing golf before the next Frank TV commercial. And that’s when you’ve got to lose three of five games.

Imagine if it were just one game? If Lew Wolff, owner of the Oakland A’s, had Bud Selig’s job, we might find out just how harsh that feeling would be.
“I’d make it one-game-and-you’re-out for the first series. It would be exciting. It would be great.”
Why bother with a whole game? Whoever scores first wins. And use that Olympic rule where the players start on first and second and you can start your lineup wherever you want. That’s excitement, buster!

Look, I get the A’s have had a hard time over the years once playoff series move past the first game but this is a real stinker of an idea. No team in baseball history has ever won more than 116 games in a season, which means every now and then you lose to the Royals. That’s baseball and that’s why, imperfect as they are, five and seven game series are the way to determine the champion.

Not much chance of it happening, though. Wolff says he hasn’t said anything to Selig because he’s afraid of him. On that, Lew, we are agreed.