Giants versus Dodgers. 1951. A single game will decide the fate of the 162 that came before it. Bottom of the ninth. Giants down to their last collective gasp. Bobby Thomson steps up. Smacks a game-winning, post-season-capturing home run. Dodgers go home. With nothing but “what if’s” to keep them company. New York versus Boston. 1978. Red Sox have a four game lead over the Yankees going into the last weekend of play. Boston’s opponent over this weekend: The hated pinstripes from the Bronx. New York, much to any Bostonian’s worst fear, wins all four games. A one game playoff at Fenway ensues. A little-known shortstop named Bucky Dent hits a season-prolonging home run for the Yanks. Boston fans find it extremely hard to swallow that night. A fan would be hard pressed to find drama like that on this September’s fields. Pennant races were the crowning moment of baseball. Beauty and injustice wrapped up in a concise, little package. The current wildcard system adds pseudo-drama to baseball, while depriving it of real drama that ruled the roost for nearly 150 years. Case in point: As Bob Costas illustrated in his book, “Fair Ball: A Fan’s Case for Baseball,” 1996 could have been baseball’s finest hour concerning pennant races. The Padres and Dodgers were not only tied for the division lead after 161 games, they played each other on the final day of the season. So what happened? The two teams rested their aces. Why? Because as Costas stated, “[N]either team cared much whether it won the division or instead took the wildcard. It was much more important to arrange their pitching rotations for the playoffs.” Some drama. In the current format, a wild-card team is, by definition, the best of the second-best in their league. Where baseball once championed an unwavering commitment to excellence, it now champions inclusiveness. Baseball was once unique. Now, like every other sport, it is divided into two seasons: a regular and a post-season. This couldn’t have been more evident than in 1997. The Braves proved to be better than the Marlins by nine games in the regular season. But because of the current format, Atlanta had to bury Florida in the NLCS as well. The Braves were unable to do so. The Marlins went on to win the World Series and then effectively spit in the face of the game, by selling its bought talent in an effort to save the plundering almighty dollar. The question, as Costas put it, is why should Atlanta have to prove itself again? As baseball makes its long climb back into the souls of Americans, the sport should be playing to its time-honored traditions (the best move on, the rest go home) rather than playing to other sports products of modern times (incessant blaring of music and a multi-tiered playoff system). So what can be done to return baseball to its roots? Well, the real problem in baseball is not the wildcard. Nor is it the three divisions per league. Both of these changes stem from pay inequity that keeps the rich richer, while giving small market teams no hope of post-season from opening day. Find a current system for baseball such as basketball’s (where teams such as Portland and Salt Lake – not exactly Mecca’s of big market – can succeed), and you write the crumbling foundation. And then return to four divisions. That may sound absurd. But I know something that may sound worse. If Bobby Thomson, in 1951, would have hit his home run under the current format, then Giants announcer Russ Hodges may have made this call, as described by Costas in “Fair Ball.” “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!” “The Dodgers get the wildcard! The Dodgers get the wildcard!”