Parity pays in MLB

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By Ben Goessling

There's about a month to go before the baseball playoffs start, and though there's only one race in which the margin between first and second is more than 4 1/2 games (the AL West), the edges of the postseason picture are starting to get filled in.

And if the standings look the same way at the end of September as they do at the end of August, the league is set for a heck of a postseason.

Barring a September surge, the Yankees appear on their way to missing the playoffs for the first time since 1993. But here's the kicker: Their big-market brethren, the Boston Red Sox, could join them on the couch. Boston holds a one-game lead on the Minnesota Twins for the AL wild card.

All that, of course, is because the Tampa Bay Rays, who were 66-96 a year ago, owned the best record in the game until Sunday. Their potential playoff opponents include the Twins, who sent the Rays right-hander Matt Garza last winter in a seemingly benign trade between also-rans, and the Los Angeles Angels, who poached center fielder Torii Hunter from the spendthrift Twins in free agency.

The National League is just as intriguing. Three months after an embarrassing late-night firing of manager Willie Randolph, the Mets lead the NL East. The Arizona Diamondbacks are trying to hold off the Dodgers (and their unlikely combination of Joe Torre and Manny Ramirez) in the NL West. And the NL Central could deliver not one but two long-suffering playoff entrants in the Brewers (last playoff appearance: 1982) and the Cubs (goats, curses, etc.).

It's an enticing mishmash of big-market teams and small-market ones, conventional contenders and surprises.

The best part is it doesn't appear to be a fluke. Baseball's new world order delivered a World Series last year between the Red Sox and Rockies - a team whose playoff chances looked dead in September - and two years ago, it matched up the Tigers (who hadn't made the playoffs in nearly 20 years before that) and Cardinals.

Whether the credit goes to front-office executives being smarter with their money or several subtle adjustments the league made to close the competitive gap, someone should be commended for producing a landscape that is extremely lucrative from a business standpoint.

The fact that baseball sets new attendance records every year is at least partly attributable to seasons like this one, with 15 teams within seven games of a playoff spot. The Brewers, playing before sellout crowds every night in a town that had written off baseball for years, are a perfect example of what even the occasional taste of a pennant race can mean to a team's bottom line.

But it won't be only mid-sized metropolises watching baseball in October. New York, Los Angeles and Chicago should all have at least one team to follow (and any of those cities could get two). Those markets will be right up alongside Midwestern hamlets and sunny locales that rarely experience baseball in October firsthand.

The matchups should be dripping with story lines, which means TV networks, teams and players all win. It's another sign of the symbiotic relationship perfected in the NFL, in which everyone learned a long time ago that a little sharing means a lot more money for all involved.

Fans shouldn't be complaining, either. In a year that began with the sport disgraced by the fallout of the Mitchell Report and the steroids scandal, September brings a welcome sense of anticipation.

All that's left is to kick back and enjoy it.