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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Playoff Options May Drive M’S Wild A Four-Team Tie Promises Flurry Of Ballgames And Plane Trips

Larry Larue Tacoma News Tribune

The wild-card race has been everything baseball could have hoped this summer - extending the postseason intrigue for a half-dozen teams in each league - but there may be a balloon payment for services rendered due Oct. 1.

On that day, the regular season ends and big-league headaches could begin, 48 hours before the playoffs are supposed to start.

And the Seattle Mariners could be in the middle of the American League’s wild-card nightmare.

Fast-forward 2-1/2 weeks to the final day of the season. It’s Oct. 1, and the Mariners beat the Texas Rangers to run their record for the year to 76-68. In Toronto, the New York Yankees beat the Blue Jays to finish the season at … 76-68.

In Anaheim Stadium, the Angels lose to the Oakland Athletics - backing into the playoffs as the American League West champion. Milwaukee beats Boston, and though the Red Sox are division champions, the Brewers’ final record is 76-68.

So is Kansas City’s, which rallies in the ninth inning in Cleveland to beat the Indians.

Across the country, American League fans check out the final standings. Three division winners are in - Cleveland, California and Boston.

And four teams are tied for the A.L. wild-card spot. What happens then?

For one thing, the A.L. playoffs scheduled to begin on Tuesday, Oct. 3, won’t. For another, the skies will be filled with ballplayers, half of them profoundly unhappy, half merely exhausted.

Planning ahead with an eye toward disaster preparedness, the A.L. had decided to hold a multi-team conference call Monday in which all wild-card contending teams pick a representative to participate in a glorified coin flip. The final result: Every conceivable postseason matchup will be granted a home team by the flip of a coin.

If, for instance, only two teams wind up with the same record - New York and Seattle, for instance - one team will be designated the home team by Monday’s coin flip. And the day after the season ends, a one-game playoff will be held at the park of that home team.

Should the Mariners lose that coin flip and tie the Yankees for the wild-card spot, Seattle would leave Texas immediately after the final game and fly to New York for a playoff game the next day.

And should Seattle win that game, the Mariners would hop in another plane and fly from New York to Seattle to begin the first round of regularly scheduled A.L. playoffs in the Kingdome on Tuesday.

“My God,” manager Lou Piniella said when the logistics were explained.

It could get considerably worse.

Go back to the original scenario: Four teams with identical records tie for the wild-card spot. Flip more coins. Seattle and Milwaukee play one game on Monday - in Milwaukee - while Kansas City hosts New York in the other.

Seattle and New York win, and each must fly to New York for a Tuesday game in Yankees Stadium.

The Mariners win that game, then fly home to start the regularly scheduled A.L. playoff series against Boston in the Kingdome.

For the non-travel agents, that means in the span of about 48 hours, the Mariners would play two high-intensity games and fly from Texas to Milwaukee, from Milwaukee to New York and from New York home - just in time for two games against Boston and then another cross-country flight to Boston.

If only three teams tie, they’d designated as teams A, B and C by coin flips. Team A plays team B at the coin-flip-decided park, while team C gets a bye. Next day, team C plays the winner of that A-B game, at the park determined by another you-know-what.

“My God,” Piniella said again. “No matter which team won the wild-card spot in that scenario, it would be at a disadvantage in the playoffs. If you play one extra game, you risk exhausting your pitching staff - you can’t hold anyone back. Then you play a second game, with no day off before the playoffs begin? That’s crazy.”

Crazy, and possible. The same rule that kept Milwaukee and New York and Seattle and Kansas City in the playoff hunt long after they’d given up division championship aspirations could produce the most complex of postseason scenarios.

“I have no idea what we’d face if we’re tied at the end of the season,” Ken Griffey Jr. said, “and I don’t know if I’d understand it after I heard. I don’t care how tired we were - we’d show up.”

They’d have to. That’s in the rules, too.