Why They Play 162...

Yes, Ed.  I'm talking about baseball.  America's pastime.  At least it used to be, until Pete Rozelle and Paul Tagliabue made every move in the NFL a televised event.  Monday Night Football.  Thanksgiving games.  Draft day.  Oh, and the championship game played in late January or early February.  What's it called?  Oh, yeah.  The Super Bowl.  I'm sure I'll be sued for using it on my blog "without express written consent of the National Football League".

But before all of this, there was baseball.  The defining sport of a nation.  An eliquent game with a ball, a stick, 3 strikes, 4 balls, 3 outs, 4 bases on a diamond, 9 innings, 18 players, and 140/154/162 games.  Every starting pitcher has the possibility to pitch in 30-35 games.  Starting position players get 500 at bats to get hits and multiple chances per game to record an out.  People who follow baseball don't talk about games, but groups of games called series.  The game is all about providing chances to prove yourself.   And what's more American than that! Right now I'm watching my team (the St Louis Cardinals) play their 156th game to prove their worth for post season.

Early in the season the Cards showed they could be the class of the National League by winning series after series and leading their division by as many as 11 games.  A 4-game losing streak in early May showed the could be beaten, but they quickly righted the ship.  But then June came and they lost more than they won.  They even lost 8 in a row during a stretch at the end of the month, but because the rest of the teams in their division were also losing their lead remained big.  Winning 3 out of 4 against rival Houston gave everyone renewed hope that they would return to form.

But by the midsummer classic, their form was already showing.  The starting pitching struggled to go deep into games.  The bullpen struggled to hold leads.  Their closer, Jason Isringhausen, blew more save opportunities than he had in years past.  But fortunately they had the best player of this generation in Albert Pujols (go ahead and challenge me on this, but he's doing things only legendary hall-of-famers did) to save their fannies.  And this year he's doing it without the help and protection of Scott Rolen and Jim Edmunds.  In addition, the defense up the middle has been average at best, where in previous years it had been incredible.  But when the math still came out, the positives still outweighed the minus, and the team was still good.  But they had another 75 games to play...

Playing .500 ball will not win you championships.  Another 8 game losing streak in July/August will not win you championships.  Playing less than .500 ball loses your home field advantage.  A 6 game losing streak at the end of September when the teams right behind you are on winning streaks leaves your magic number at 5 for the last week and reduces your lead in the division to 2.5 games.  If you lose the division, your record is so pathetic you can't even make it as the wild card.  It's do or die.  And right now, the Cards are on life support.  Will they make it into the post season?  We'll know this weekend.  If my heart can take it. 

But that's why they play 162.  That's the beauty of the game.  After that many chances, we find out what teams really deserve to be in the playoffs.  It's not like the NBA or NHL (who's really following this sport anymore - baseball barely survived losing a World Series, let alone a whole season!) where half the league makes the second season.  And football has a good season length, but because of the brutal nature of the sport, the loss of a key player for a week or 2 can be the difference between a playoff birth and a good position in next year's draft.  But in 162 game in 180 days, you can measure a team's metal for the long haul.  Sure there are streaks (both good and bad), but they even out.  Guys go down, but many times they have a chance to come back - just like Jim Edmunds did last night with a 3 run home run in his first at-bat after a month out of the lineup.  But the patterns of the team will develop and be evident to everyone over the course of the long season.  The right teams will win and lose.  And the true champion will be crowned.  Unfortunately, it probably won't be St. Louis.

Tonight, the boys wearing the Birds on the Bat lose again.  Ace pitcher Chris Carpenter gives up 4 runs in a disasterous 7th inning to put the Padres ahead 6-5.  In the 8th inning, Pujols comes up as the tying run at the plate, but just misses his pitch and pops it up to center field.  A lead-off hit in the bottom of the 9th goes to waste as the rest of the order goes quietly.  The losing streak is 7 - the Cardinals have now had 3 losing streaks of  7+ games (not the mark of a division champion) - and their lead over the Astros is 1.5.  Earlier this month, a fellow Cards fan sent me an email rejoicing when the Cubs had finally fallen to the cellar.  I couldn't join in the jocularity knowing the Cubs were also the team involved in one of baseball's most famous collapses.  Now we might be replacing them in the history books.

You know, maybe 156 games is better measure of a team...