Hopes run high, dreams are crushed and tickets are punched.
It’s September, and it’s the best time of the year for the American sports power triumvirate — NCAA football, NFL football and Major League Baseball.
But there’s a missing dynamic to this September. Where, oh where are those exciting Major League playoff races, and why does nobody care about what happens in baseball’s final month?
America’s pastime is taking a backseat to college and professional football, and it’s not doing itself any favors by producing the most boring September in recent memory.
It’s the final week in baseball’s regular season, and there is not a single divisional race that is up for grabs.
Sure, there are a couple that could be won with miraculous streaks and lost with disastrous collapses. But with the way the season has played out, every division should be locked up with days to spare.
The American League East is the only division providing us with at least a little suspense in the form of the wild-card race between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays.
Great for the Northeast, bad for the rest of the country. But until the rest of the majors step up, it’s the only race we’ll get to see thanks to the ultimate choke job going on in Boston.
The Sox have lost seven of their last 10 games, opening the door for the Rays’ slim playoff chances.
“I feel like in the AL East, you’re always going to have those three teams – the Yankees, Red Sox and Devil Rays – every year it comes down to two of those three teams going to the playoffs,” said Rays fan Ian Bryson, international trade and finance sophomore. “I think it sucks that only two of them can it.”
Baseball’s 162-game regular season also takes fans like mechanical engineering senior Wade Aguillard away from the game once football season starts.
“During the fall especially, football is dominant,” said Aguillard. “Once the spring comes around, I’m going to get into baseball, and most of my friends would as