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The NFL and MLB are different entities......Salary cap being the biggest. Teams can turn over in 2 years and if you look at the Jets this year or the Pats in 2000/2001 and 2002/2003, one season is all it takes.

The wild card is actually good for baseball for the following reasons:

1) More divisions means better rivalries. Yankees and Sox play 19 games a year in the regular season. Same for Dodgers/Giants.

2) Last 3 WS champs were wild card.

3) Money is not the be all, end all. Marlins were a lower payroll team and the Angels had 1/2 the payroll of the Yankees in 2002. A's got to the playoffs 4 years in a row on a low payroll. Yes, money can help buy you a ticket to the playoffs but it cannot buy the series.

4) sox had 2nd best record in the conference and beat the 1st and second overall best record teams in the post season. No charity there.

I do not buy your arguments regarding the wild card being good for baseball. The purpose of the 162 game schedule is to identify the best team. If one second place team qualifies for the playoffs why shouldn't all of them?

If more divisions create more rivalries why doesn't baseball just go to all two-team divisions and have nothing but rivalries, and they could play each other even more than 19 times a season? And the more divisional champions will create even more playoff teams and more post season excitement. The unbalanced schedules also ensure some teams get to play more games against inferior opponents which makes it relatively easier for them to make the playoffs as the wild card team, and this can be compounded by inequality of interleague opponents.

The last 3 World Series champs being wild card teams should amplify the impact of money on World Series winners as they all made acquisitions at the trading deadline to prop their stretch runs.

Yes, the A's got to the playoffs 4 years in a row, but they finally ran out of luck because they could not afford to keep their closer, who just happened to be a key player in the Red Sox post season success, at the start of the season, and they could not afford to make any acquisitions to improve their team at the trading deadline. The only "low salary" team to make the playoffs this year was the Twins, and they made it because they were the best of a bad lot in the AL Central. No, money is not the be all end all in baseball, but the intelligent use of money is, and disproportionate distribution of money enables some franchises to succeed with less intelligent use of more money.

The Red Sox finished with the second best record in the AL because their late season acquisitions improved their team. Where were they sitting in the standings prior to their stretch drive? Post season series are strange animals. There is no question Boston was playing the best baseball in September and October, but they certainly weren't the best from April through August.