Yet another reason to hate the current playoff structure…

Interesting comments in the Boston Globe today:

”We are co-champions,” said Sox vice president Charles Steinberg. ”The rule is in place only for playoff seeding.”

Consistent with that remark, Sox scoreboard operators flipped the Yankees and Red Sox in the standing on the Green Monster scoreboard less than 10 minutes after the completion of the finale. While ”Tessie” blared over the Fenway sound system, the ”Boston” placard was placed atop the ”New York” sign. However, the Red Sox’ celebration garb made no reference to the word ”champion.” The hats read ”Division Series” while the T-shirts broadcast ”Wild Card.”

”I’m not going to get into that debate,” said Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino. ”What this means is that we are postseason participants. October baseball was our goal and I think we should focus on that imagery.”

Wunderkind general manager Theo Epstein said, ”The rule says we’re wild-card champs, so we’re wild-card champs.”

Get a clue, Raf; the whole point of the competition is that there’s just one winner.
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Um, yeah…

Looking at the standings,

NYY 95-67
BOS 95-67

Season series, schmeason series. In 1951, the Jints lost the season series to the Dodgers. 1978, the Yanks won the season series against the Red Sox (before gm 163).

But hey, if you want to determine some “champion” by some arcane system go right ahead. It’s the state of MLB that a second place team can be considered the “best team in baseball”

Having seen that crew in action, it was an easy thing to call. It was like predicting that a duck would quack.

Steve, it looks like you were right on the money:

“Co-division champs. That’s what I’m calling it,” Red Sox owner John Henry said. “I can understand why there isn’t [a playoff], but frankly, I would have liked to have had one. It would have been nice to settle the division championship.

There’s no such things as “co-champs” in baseball (or even ties.) This isn’t kindergarten. If the Yankees won the A.L. East pennant (which they did), then they’re the champions; the Red Sox are in second place. If the Red Sox had won the season series, you wouldn’t hear the Yankees pathetically protesting that they were really “co-champs”, too. Get a clue, Raf; the whole point of the competition is that there’s just one winner.

Whatever…

They won the same number of games overall, they’re “co-champs”

If the Yanks win it all, does this mean TB can claim a piece of the trophy? After all, they DID win the season series vs. the Yanks.

I, too, wouldn’t be surprised to see Lucchino and the Red Sox try to claim a share of the title should the Sox win today. But I don’t care, because *I* know who won the division under MLB’s rules. And the Yankees know, too. I only hope the Yankees have more class than the Astros – enough class to let the Red Sox whine without whining right back.

Stupid. In the NFL, you never hear anything like “AFC East Co-Champs”.