Trietley: The MLB playoffs are here, but not for long

Some sounds are unmistakably baseball. The resounding sound of ball on bat. The smack of ball meeting glove. The scrape of upturned dirt as a runner slides into second.

I have another sound. Zoom!

That’s the sound of the baseball postseason whizzing by. The playoffs are too short.

Baseball — try as the NBA might — is the epitome of the long, monotonous regular season. Each team play 162 games from April to October. But when the playoffs roll around, suddenly everybody is in a hurry. The postseason started less than two weeks ago, and we’re already well into the league championship series.

It’s time for Commissioner Bud Selig to fix the schedule. I have four suggestions.

First, shorten the regular season. The term “dog days of summer” applies to August baseball for good reason. By then, half the league knows it won’t make the playoffs, half the players are nursing hamstring injuries, and half the fans stop caring.

Start the season later to avoid canceling games because of snow or cold in the north and reduce the schedule by 10 to 20 games. With the shorter schedule, teams will remain invested in the playoff chase longer, which means that a Brewers-Padres game in mid-August might be worthwhile.

Owners will never allow Selig to shorten the schedule, though. More games on the schedule means more tickets sold, which means more money. This brings me to my second schedule revision, which should appease front offices.

Expand the playoffs. Four teams from each league make the playoffs in baseball, but eight teams per conference make it in hockey and basketball. In football, six teams per conference advance. If baseball increases its postseason from eight to 12 teams, four more teams cash in on playoff revenue.

ESPN’s Peter Gammons agrees that the playoffs should expand. He wrote recently that baseball should think about adding another wild card spot per league to spice up lackluster playoff races.

Some would argue that expanding the playoffs would water the event down, with too many mediocre teams getting in. But thanks to weak divisions, mediocre teams already sneak in over worthy clubs.

Last season, the 84-78 Los Angeles Dodgers, with the eighth-best record in the National League, made the playoffs because they won the anemic National League West. More playoff spots would allow for some of the teams snubbed for Los Angeles to make it.

This season, the Minnesota Twins won the American League Central with a record of 87-76, while the Texas Rangers missed the playoffs with a record of 87-75. The New York Yankees promptly swept the Twins in three games.

This leads to recommendation three: not only expand the size of the playoffs, but increase the length of the series. The division series is best-of-five. The Twins and Boston Red Sox each had just one home playoff game.

Make the first round best-of-seven like the other rounds. With a best-of-five, teams are out before fans can even adjust themselves to the fact that it’s the playoffs.

In addition, short series lack intensity. In hockey, series often start out tame, but as they progress, players start to hate one another. With three- and four-game series, there isn’t a chance for the rivalry to build. Imagine if last year’s Celtics-Bulls matchup lasted only a weekend.

One downside: Longer series mean more incessant advertising from TBS about George Lopez and Tyler Perry, but we can live with that if it means great baseball.

Speaking of advertising, my fourth recommendation for baseball’s schedule: This time, don’t make it count. Under the tagline “This Time It Counts,” the winning league of the All-Star Game currently receives home-field advantage in the World Series.

Selig instituted the quirk to boost sinking All-Star game ratings and to appease the media maelstrom that swarmed after ending the 2002 All-Star Game in a tie.

Selig, though, should have known that the media scrapes for stories in the dog days of summer. Now baseball fans are stuck with the league basing the location of a pivotal World Series Game 7 not on what team earned it more but how the Padres’ Heath Bell pitched in an exhibition game in mid-summer.

If Selig wanted meaningful baseball, he should have focused on fixing the games in October and not the one in July.