Baseball Teams Don't Win Pennants; They Get to Go to the World Series

You'd better get used to it because it's not going to change. When was the last time you heard anyone in the media tell you that the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals won their league's respective pennants?

What you probably were told was that the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals are going to the World Series.

When Bobby Thomson hit his home run to end the 1951 playoff series, Russ Hodges, who was doing the radio play-by-play, screamed repeatedly, "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!"

Today's broadcasters would have told their audience that "The Giants are going to the World Series! The Giants are going to the World Series! Bobby Thomson hit a pennant-winning walk off  home run."

With two rounds of playoffs followed by the World Series, it is impossible for fans, even intense fans, to keep track of how many times their team made the playoffs, what their record is in the first round, in the second round and even how many pennants their team has won.

The media have made a conscious and quite successful effort to blend the playoffs and the World Series into the "postseason."

Quick, now, who broke Mickey Mantle's post season record for most career home runs? Did anyone say Manny Ramirez?

Ramirez hit 29 postseason home runs. Do you know how many he hit in the World Series? He hit all of four home runs in the World Series.

Does anyone believe that Manny's other 25 postseason home runs were hit off pitchers who, as a group, were as effective as pitchers on pennant winners? Manny hit 12 home runs in the first playoff round and another 13 in the second round.

It's reasonable to assume (don't give me the old, when you ass-u-me, you make an ass of you and me) that the pitching in the World Series is generally better than the pitching in the playoffs.

After all, of the four teams that make the playoffs in each league, only one is good enough to win the pennant.  Hold it. Excuse me. Only one is good enough to get to the World Series.

The St. Louis Cardinals are one of the game's great franchises. They have won 18 pennants and 10 World Championships. That's easy to remember, but the Cardinals have made 24 playoff appearances.

No one cares or cares to learn what happened during those playoffs. All that matters are the pennants and World Championships.

The Texas Rangers used to be the Washington Senators. Nope, not the Washington Senators of Walter Johnson and Harmon Killebrew. The Rangers were the expansion Washington Senators of Chuck Hinton and Joe McClain.

The team moved to Texas in 1972. They have won two pennants and made five playoff appearances.

It would be nice for the media to be precise when discussing records or comparing players. One final example illustrates how lumping the playoffs and the World Series easily misleads.

Andy Pettitte has started 13 World Series games and 29 playoff games. The media usually state that Pettitte has made 42 postseason starts, which leaves much to the imagination.

Pettitte has won 19 "postseason" games, but only five of those were in the World Series.

Of course, a team must win the playoffs to win the pennant, but most of the time, it really is easier to win the playoffs than to win the World Series because most of the time, the opponent in the World Series is stronger than the teams that have been eliminated.

Teams that don't deserve the chance to pull off a fluky win in the playoffs find the playoffs tough because mediocre teams are mediocre.