Snyder's Soapbox: Bring back the tiebreaker games instead of making us do math

Welcome to Snyder's Soapbox! Here, I pontificate about matters related to Major League Baseball on a weekly basis. Some of the topics will be pressing matters, some might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and most will be somewhere in between. The good thing about this website is that it's free, and you are allowed to click away. If you stay, you'll get smarter, though. That's a money-back guarantee. Let's get to it.

One of the most famous highlights in MLB history is what is known as the "Shot Heard 'Round the World." Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants hit a walk-off homer to defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers, win the 1951 National League pennant and advance to the World Series. The repeated screams from broadcaster Russ Hodges of "the Giants win the pennant!" has become possibly the most famous sports call ever (up there with "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"). 

Even before that legendary home run, the game held a level of suspense and pressure that can only exist in sports. That was a tiebreaker game, Game 3 of a tiebreaker series, in fact. This was back when there were only the two leagues, with no divisions, and the winners of each league just advanced straight to the World Series. The Dodgers and Giants had finished the end of the regular season tied at 96-58 apiece. 

Nowadays, we don't have tiebreaker series. We had tiebreaker games for a bit, but those went away, too. If the league used tiebreaker scenarios back in 1951, the Dodgers would have advanced to the World Series instead of suffering the walk-off loss. They won the season series over the Giants through the end of the regular-season schedule, 13 games to nine. A little less anticlimactic, no?

There have been some really fun tiebreaker games in recent memory. Remember the Rockies outlasting the Padres in 13 innings for the 2007 wild card, only to end up in the World Series? Of course, if there were replay review, they might still be playing that game. That's beside the point, though, because it was great theater all night long. 

You know what else was great theater? The White Sox winning 1-0 over the Twins to take the AL Central the next year, though that was merely an appetizer for the tiebreaker game in 2009, which the Twins won over the Tigers, 6-5 in 12 innings, to take the Central in one of the most excited regular season -- yes, technically it's still the regular season! -- games anyone will ever see. 

We got a pair of tiebreaker games in 2018 with the Brewers taking down the Cubs for the NL Central title and the Dodgers beating the Rockies for the NL West title. 

It appears those will go down as the last two. Due to the length of the playoffs now, as there are 12 playoff teams and the wild card round is a three-game series, MLB has decided there isn't room for the tiebreaker games. Instead, we get tiebreaker scenarios. 

Sure, every other major professional sports league around here does the same thing, but I liked being special. I liked that a tie through 162 games meant the teams had to suit up and play one more. Given the daily nature of the sport, which separates this one from the others, it wasn't overly difficult to squeeze in. 

With September rolling in, it's time to start thinking about tiebreakers. As a Cubs fan, when they crept within five games of the Brewers, my thought immediately went to Chicago owning the tiebreaker (they won the season series over Milwaukee, 7-6) and how that's good news if a miracle comeback is staged. Out west, the Dodgers have a one-game lead over the Padres and also have the tiebreaker due to winning the season series, 9-4. 

First off, it really sucks that both of those season series are finished before August is even over. Secondly, so much of the magic is gone. It seems entirely possible that the Dodgers and Padres are in a dead heat with something like one week or even just one series to go this season. Instead of jockeying to try and win the division outright and avoid the one-game playoff, the Dodgers will now they have the tiebreaker. It's a math problem, not baseball.

I understand the logistics of the situation. I like that the Wild Card Series is three games instead of one and if we're going to do all this with the 12 playoff teams, I get that it doesn't seem like there's room for any one-game playoffs to be wedged in between the scheduled regular season and the playoffs.

As with many things in life, though, in the face of addition -- in this case, more playoff teams and more playoff games -- the subtraction that happens is more of a loss than we perhaps once realized. There were only 16 tiebreakers in MLB history (12 single games and four series), but some of them were among the best games we ever witnessed and even the looming threat of the playoff heightened the drama down the stretch. Bring back the drama.