When divisional play began in baseball in 1969, it created a best-of-five League Championship Series, with the winners therein meeting in the World Series.
As commissioner Bowie Kuhn said at the time, it wouldn't be practical to have a first-place team and a 12tth-place team — but what would have been so "impractical" about going back to the 154-game schedule, with every team playing the other 11 teams in the same league 14 times?
Cynics chirped that Kuhn merely wanted the owners for which he worked to make more money.
Except for the strike-interrupted "split season" of 1981, this is the way it stayed until 1985, when the LCS was lengthened to best-of-seven.
Another strike, in 1994, caused the postseason to be canceled — and the 1995 season not starting until April 26, with a 144-game regular season being played, followed by a new best-of-five Division Series (there would have been such a series in 1994 as well if not for the strike).
Both the original best-of-five League Championship Series and the new best-of-five Division Series featured the lower-seeded team playing the first two games at home, with the higher-seeded teams hosting the last three.
After complaints all the way around, the format was changed in 1998 to one in which the higher seed gets Games 1, 2, and 5 at home, with the lower seed hosting Games 3 and 4.
But the time has come for baseball to lengthen its Division Series to best-of-seven (the NBA has lengthened its first round twice in recent memory — from best-of-three from 1974-75 through 1982-83 to best-of-five from 1983-84 through 2001-2002 to best-of-seven starting with the 2002-03 season) — and make some other changes as well.
First off, every team that makes the playoffs is entitled to at least one game at home — and this can be done by having the lower seeds in the Wild Card Series host Game 2 (this was done in both the NBA and NHL when those leagues had best-of-three "mini-series").
True, this would lengthen the potential duration of the Wild Card Series from three days to five — just as observing a 2-2-1-1-1 format in all of the other rounds of the postseason, including the World Series, would result in lengthening the entire postseason (including the Wild Card Series) by a combined 10 days — and it would also mean that no longer if the lower seed splits the first two games of a best-of-seven series in the higher seed's building, could they come home and close out the series by taking three out of three in their building — which is patently unfair.
But what if the regular season is re-shortened from 162 games to its "traditional" 154? And if the regular season could be 144 games in 1995 (and 60 games in 2020 due to a COVID pandemic that scores of millions of Americans claim was a hoax), how could anyone possibly object to the return of the 154-game regular season?
(And to anyone who says that a schedule can never be cut back: the NHL had an 80-game regular season from 1974-75 through 1991-92, only to lengthen the season to 84 games in 1992-1993 and 1993-94; following a lockout imposed by the owners that shortened the 1994-95 season to 48 games, the schedule was rolled back to 82 games, where it remains today).
That cancels out the extra days — meaning that the baseball season gets to both begin and end within the same range of dates as it does now.
As for the regular season, every team can play their four division rivals 12 times each (12 X 4 = 48), the 10 teams in the other two divisions within the same league six times each (6 X 10 = 60), and the same 46 interleague games that are played currently, for 48 + 60 + 46 = 154.
And if MLB ever expands again? As Ted Kennedy should have said, they'll have to cross that bridge when they come to it.
In the meantime, for heaven's sake, re-seed the teams after the Wild Card Series, so that the 1 seed is guaranteed to play the lowest-seeded Wild Card Series winner (the NFL has always done this). This will make getting the 1 seed that much more important.
Make Baseball Fair Again!
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