The Lost Pennant Races
This is the tradeoff: We traded the drama of pennant races for the thrill of the playoffs. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing — it’s actually a good thing because the VAST majority of North American sports fans* prefer playoffs (and, absolutely, playoffs are awesome).
*This does not seem to be true in England.
But we should acknowledge: The singular thrill of having two great teams fighting to the finish knowing that only one of them will go on, well, that’s gone forever.
I remember 75-76 because that year Indiana beat Michigan in the championship game. First time two teams from the same conference met for the title. And I think that gave some more impetus to including even more teamsfrom the shsme conference- although I think that's gone a little overboard now. I think I remember Bob Knight saying that Michigan- whom Indiana played and beat twice earlier that year- was the best team they played all year.
I understand the playoffs and it was exciting last year with the NL races going back and forth.
That '67 year was a doozy. With only 10 teams and 4 of them in the pennant race I remember it seemed like over a 2-3 day period you went from 1st to 4th and then back again. And a lot of days you had two, if not all 4 contenders, playing against each other so many games carried double the impact. It was almost like a 4 team photo finish happening for an extended period of time. It seemed to alternate between agonizing and exhilarating about every other day-at least for me.
Sighhhhhhhh!!! What I feared has come to pass - even worse than I feared. Since the move to the Athletic, the comments here have dropped to almost zero. This latest post already has 58 comments at the Athletic, none here. :( I’m happy with the Athletic connection, just always loved reading the comments from the BR’s. All that discussion about whether to pay a nominal amount for accessing comments here might become moot. Anyone have any ideas? Maybe it will improve over time.
I’ll try to kick something off with two completely unrelated responses to Joe's post:
1) I so remember the 1967 American League pennant race. It seemed like the whole summer, but especially the last month, the lead would switch almost every day between the Red Sox, the White Sox, the Tigers, and Twins. I was attending a boarding high school and every night tried to get the scores- often partial- on my transistor radio before bed time. With that many teams the good and bad news scenarios seemed endless. I was a big white Sox fan and even though they didn’t win every day was so full of anticipation. I do miss a good pennant race.
2) regarding worthy teams not making the NCAA tournament, the 1970-71 USC team finished the year 24 and 2, with both losses against the number 1 ranked, undefeated, and national champs UCLA. Talk about a team that should have been in the tournament but since they finished second in the league they couldn’t go. Paul Westphal, later a well known coach, was one of the leaders of that team. I believe that circumstance was when the first discussions of letting two teams from a conference make the tourney. That didn’t come about until, I believe, the 75-76 season.