A September to remember

Thanks to second wild card, MLB has a final month for the ages

What a finish, what a concept. On the final day of the MLB season, Wednesday, in Game 162, only the Cardinals and Braves and their NL wild-card one-game playoff had been settled for sure, as a match-up and locale — plus, a Triple Crown was still on the line for Miguel Cabrera. Wow!

On the West Coast, the A’s swept the Rangers to complete a comeback for the division title, while on the East Coast, the Yankees swept the Red Sox to hold off the upstart Orioles and take the league’s top seed, with home field nailed down through the ALCS.

In most seasons, most years, the final day is a case of going through the motions clearing the bench of rookies. But never has there been a final month as deep and exciting as Major League Baseball experienced in 2012. The concept of a second wild-card team with its huge incentive of winning the division, so as to avoid a roll-of-thedice, one-game playoff, made the months of September and October truly meaningful.

The two wild-card teams concept is NL WILD CARD Cardinals at Braves 5:07 p.m., Sportsnet AL WILD CARD Orioles at Rangers 8:37 p.m., Sportsnet not perfect. Consider that the two teams with the best records, the Yankees in the AL and the Nationals in the NL are forced to wait for Friday’s results of the wild-card games to know where they will fly to open their division series Sunday. They must prepare for two teams on video scouting. But that complaint is insignificant compared to the way that Bud Selig’s 10team playoff concept played out, with 20 of 30 teams still alive in September.

PLAYOFFS: Wild-card game previews,

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