Did Brewers Deserve a Playoff Spot?
THOUGHTS ON 16-TEAM POSTSEASON FORMAT AND JAY JOHNSTONE'S PASSING
Pregame Pepper
Did you know ...
Since Yankee Stadium opened in 1923, Bill Virdon was the only Yankees manager who never managed the team there (he was at the helm in 1974-75 when the team played home games at Shea Stadium).
Leading Off
Losing Teams Shouldn’t Qualify For Baseball Playoffs
By Adam Rygg
A wise man once said “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”
A wiseguy once said “The way I saw it, everyone takes a beating sometime.”
When Major League Baseball finally began its truncated regular season, scheduled for a mere 60 games, every team felt a fresh sense of possibility. Anything can happen in such a relatively short season. Any team could get hot and conceivably ride out what is normally just a nice couple of months into a shot at the World Series.
The Milwaukee Brewers shared in that vision. They believed they could. And they should have believed it. Coming off of consecutive postseason appearances for just the second time in franchise history, the Brewers were returning many good pieces on offense and a solid pitching staff poised to take the next step forward. All they had to do was ride out the 60-game storm and they figured they would find themselves in a third-straight playoffs for the first time.
But then the beating began in earnest. Off-season acquisitions didn’t perform as expected. Players who could be counted on in the past never found their usual production. A key player put family first and opted out of risking his safety in the midst of a pandemic. Injuries mounted and lingered, even occurring to key players in the final series.
Still, the Brewers weathered the storm. They didn’t play a single game without meaning. Entering the season’s final day, Milwaukee had a simple way of continuing to have games scheduled. Win, thereby finishing with a .500 record, and qualify for the expanded postseason.
The Brewers lost their final game to finish the season with a 29-31 won-lost record. Never before in the history of Major League Baseball had a team qualified for postseason participation on the accomplishment of a losing record over a full season. Naturally, in this weird year, two teams did exactly that after winning just 29 games against 31 losses.
The Houston Astros finished second in the American League’s Western Division and qualified as the sixth seed on the AL’s side of the expanded postseason bracket. The Milwaukee Brewers were the final team to qualify for the National League side. In an environment that allowed for a record number of teams -- 16 of 30, for 53 per cent -- to reach the postseason, there was worry that a “loser” would make it in. Instead, the sport got two.
That undoubtedly raised questions in the Commissioner’s office, though this particular postseason was constructed with visions of dollar signs dancing in the league’s collective heads. If the higher seeds simply defeated the 29-win clubs, though, all would be forgotten -- dismissed as a necessary blip so the higher seeds didn’t need to sit idle and so that there were at least four more televised games from which to reap ad revenue.
The Brewers, for their part, were swept home by the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers: darlings of the National League. The Dodgers won 43 games, which is a whole lot when teams only play 60. They were widely expected to sweep the Brewers and virtually no one even gave Milwaukee a shot at winning the series even if it could steal one game. It was the system taking care of itself. Nobody will be too cross for too long given the circumstances. But then the Astros went out and swept the Minnesota Twins. Suddenly a sub-.500 team advanced to the Division Series and the gnashing of teeth resumed.
Baseball has had a problem with getting out of its own way over the years. Without going down the rabbit hole, it has made many decisions that frustrate or even alienate its core, die-hard fan base in the unending quest to draw in more casual fans. The immediate return on so many teams having a chance to win the Commissioner’s trophy makes it seem like an exciting and fresh idea for a sport often entrenched in its traditions. The league needs to be careful to not denigrate the importance of its regular season. Much revenue is earned over 81 home games as well and people simply won’t bother with it if it ends up meaningless.
Major League Baseball is on record as desiring expansion to 32 franchises. If 16 teams reach the Postseason after that, half of the league would qualify. That’s how it’s done in the National Basketball Association. The NBA is popular, typically enjoys high television ratings which brings with them increased revenues. Professional sports, after all, are big business.
The fact that a team that lost more than it won is continuing on in the postseason tournament should be problematic to those in the decision-making chairs. In 2020, it made sense to help negate some of the shortness of the season by allowing more teams to have a chance. It helps cover for some of the flaws that are worked out over 162 games. Even still, the reigning World Series Champion Washington Nationals missed out on the fun. That’s bad for the sport. Parity is touted as the ultimate goal, but keeping fan bases energized is the best thing. All fans want their team to have a seat at the postseason table, but at what cost to the overall value of the competition?
Never again should Major League Baseball support a format that allows for the likelihood of a losing team qualifying for postseason play. Maintain the value in the regular season. Baseball has such a long season for a reason. Nothing could have been proven more by what transpired in the 60 games of 2020.
With an apology to the wise people in the world, allow for another wiseguy quote: “Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.”
In other words, if a 16-team postseason is kept in place or ever revisited in the future, it is entirely likely to again feature a team or teams with a losing record. That should not be allowed to happen again.
Adam Rygg is a native Texan, transplanted long ago into Wisconsin and its sports teams. You can hear him on the radio and occasionally guest-appearing on some podcasts, and when the mood strikes, he even sometimes authors a Brewers blog (thebrewernation.com). His work has also appeared on SI.com, MLBlogs.com, and the former FanRagSports alongside Jon Heyman.
Cleaning Up
Jay Johnstone Had Good Reason To Call Himself Crazy Jay ~ A Personal Remembrance
By Dan Schlossberg
I was saddened earlier this week to learn that my friend Jay Johnstone died at age 74, apparently of complications from COVID-19.
Though he played 21 years, wore eight different uniforms, and earned two World Series rings, Jay will best be remembered as a master prankster so good at his craft that he wrote three books about them.
As a part-time outfielder with considerable prowess as a lefthanded pinch-hitter, Johnstone had plenty of time on his hands. So he figured early on that he’d have some fun rather than bide his time on the bench.
He once went into the bleachers at Wrigley Field in full uniform to buy a hot dog – aggavating Cubs manager Lee Elia when he wanted Johnstone to pinch-hit but couldn’t find him.
He also tied a rope from a palm tree to the outside of Tommy Lasorda’s hotel room doorknob, forcing the Dodgers manager to miss breakfast before a long spring training bus ride.
He even had comrades-in-arms, including pitcher Jerry Reuss when both were with the Dodgers. The two of them once dressed as Dodger Stadium groundskeepers and helped drag the infield during the fifth inning.
He also cut out the crotch of Rick Sutcliffe’s underwear, hid a soggy brownie in Steve Garvey’s glove, nailed teammates’ shoes to the floor, and replaced the celebrity photos on Lasorda’s wall with pictures of Don Stanhouse, Reuss, and Johnstone.
Johnstone’s book titles tell his story well: Temporary Insanity, Over the Edge, and Some of My Best Friends Are Crazy.
I knew Jay well and liked him. Gifted with a handsome face and a great sense of humor, he always had a laugh and a smile. He had good looks and a good voice, enabling him to have a broadcast career. We even worked together on a proposed baseball talk show called BallTalk, on the foreword of several books, and on several week-long baseball theme cruises I organized.
In recent years, he’d call and ask if I could help him get speaking-and-signing gigs on the East Coast so that he could visit old friends in New York and Philadelphia. He never made more than $150,000 in a season. His career total, according to Baseball-Reference.com, was $575,000 – about the size of the minimum salary today.
Johnstone played for the Yankees, Phillies, White Sox, Cubs, Cardinals, Angels, Dodgers, and Padres, winning World Series rings in 1978 (Yankees) and 1981 (Dodgers).
Jay loved people – especially women and children – and was unfailingly polite and personable. He even came to Livingston, NJ to sign photos and other memorabilia at Skybox Baseball Cards, a shop I then co-owned with well-known collector and authenticator Bill Jacobowitz.
He was in several movies, including Naked Gun: from the Files of Police Squad and Body Slam. Oddly, he batted righthanded in the movie – probably Jay’s idea of a plot twist for baseball fans who were paying attention.
Johnstone hit .267 with 102 home runs during a 20-year career that started in 1966 but his biggest moment was a pinch-hit home run that turned Game Four of the 1981 World Series into an 8-7 Dodger victory. Two years earlier, he went 7-for-9 for the Phillies against the Reds in the NL Championship Series in a losing effort. He posted a robust .476 batting average with four extra-base hits and five runs batted in over 14 post-season games.
A Connecticut native raised in Southern California, Johnstone loved to travel the country, talk baseball, and tell the world about his well-deserved reputation as a player prolific as both a prankster and pinch-hitter.
Baseball history is filled with stories of other pranksters, from Rabbit Maranville to Sparky Lyle, but Jay Johnstone was in a class by himself.
Worth noting:
New York Giants remember today, October 3, as the date of Bobby Thomson’s 1951 “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” . . .
The Marlins carry a 7-0 record in postseason series into the NL Division Series against the Atlanta Braves at Minute Maid Park Tuesday . . .
Happy birthday to Hall of Famer Dave Winfield.
_____
Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is Weekend Editor of Here’s the Pitch, author of more than three-dozen books, and organizer of baseball theme cruises that featured Jay Johnstone. Dan’s e.mail is ballauthor@gmail.com.