The Veep Debate and Wild Card Playoffs

I really tried to watch the whole thing.

Well, "really tried?" I mean, I could have pushed through. I chose not to for the sake of my blood pressure and my downstairs neighbor, who was probably sick of my screaming "go to hell you lying son of a bitch/smarmy troll/piece of excrement" etc. every two minutes or so.

But I turned it off, "it" being the so-called debate between Vice-Presidential nominees Tim Walz and J.D. Vance. Had I kept on, I would have seen Walz be better; early on he was obviously nervous and appeared out of his depth, but I know from post-debate analysis and the slew of clips that made it around the Internet and cable news that he improved markedly in the second half. Had I kept on, I would also, however, continued to see Vance pour on the bullshit in such a slick, phony faith-healer way, with an abundance of the sort of charm you might find in a sociopathic used car dealer determined to have you drive this lemon off the lot and be happy you did it.

Vance is like a lot of modern-day Republicans in that he can seemingly get away with saying the vilest, most repugnant things so long as he says it in a calm, thoughtful-sounding tone. The film Vice captured this in its portrayal of Dick Cheney, but it's the same schtick you hear form Bill Barr, Kevin McCarthy, even Steve Bannon (though his weird triple-shirts get in the way of seeming sane). But there was Vance, claiming in a calm tone with as straight a face as he could muster that Donald Trump saved the Affordable Care Act (when he actually tried his damnedest to destroy it), peacefully left office (when he actually incited an insurrection to try to stay in power), and didn't crash the economy (when he in fact presided over a massive manufacturing recession, waged a trade war that cost taxpayers billions, and so botched a global health crisis that everything went into the tank not to mention cost hundreds of thousands of lives). The smarmy, lying, weasel. And there were the alleged journalists acting as "moderators," treating a 35-year-old misstatement on a matter of no importance by Governor Walz with the same heft and importance—greater heft, arguably—than the mountain of deceit, lies, gaslighting, and revisionist history being spouted by the opposing campaign on a daily, nay, hourly basis.

Fortunately, it seems the public saw through Vance's facade of crap and credit Walz with authenticity from the event. I admit to being a little surprised at that, given how easily manipulated 70+ million people were in the 2020 campaign. The stakes being what they are, it's no wonder Governor Walz was nervous stepping onto that stage and thank god/fate/whatever he was able to hold his own against Weasel McPantsonfire.

Anyway, I couldn't take it, so I switched over to baseball.

This is now the third year of the "Wild Card Series" in the Major League Baseball postseason and I remain against it. We did have, for the first time, one series go the distance of three games, with the New York Mets pulling out a come-from-behind win to move on earlier this evening; meaning in the 12 WC series to date, the team that did not advance was won one game and the team that lost the first game has advanced zero times. You might say the sample size is still too small, but I say that pretty much negates the argument some had been making about the previous one-and-done Wild Card game setup being somehow less fair than a best-of-three, like we have now. And, illustrating another glaring flaw in the system, the division winners forced to play on the same level as the Wild Card teams were both ousted, meaning that now a division winner has been eliminated before the Division Series 2/3 of the time. (Not that I'm sad to see Houston lose, though. That's a silver lining this year.)

I've gone on at length before about how this is a dumb system that Commissioner Manfred has saddled us with and how it could be better, so I'll go on here only briefly. But it stinks for the fans in Milwaukee to see their team, which dominated its division all year long, bounced out in consecutive years by teams that won nothing in the regular season. Finishing first needs to actually matter. Advancing as a Wild Card team needs to be harder. Again, briefly, if we must have these stupid expanded playoffs, I want to see (for practical reasons only) four WC teams per league instead of three; all division winners skip the WC series; and no offdays for WC teams. Play the day after the regular season to winnow four WC teams to two, survivors play the next day to determine who gets the single WC berth in the Division Series, then straight in to the DS without any rest, meaning any WC team to advance to an LCS needs a deep starting rotation and a capable bench. Also, as a side benefit, this shortens the arguably-disadvantageous layoff for the "bye teams" (division winners) by three days. 

Too obvious?

Anyway, it is what it is this year, and we get an 8-team bracket of finalists with no obvious rooting interest for your's truly. Do I support Detroit as the upstart come-from-nowhere surprise club? The loaded lineup and battered pitching staff of the Dodgers? Cleveland's a possibility now that they've rebranded away from racism; rookie manager Steven Vogt and star power in José Ramírez and Steven Kwan are certainly appealing. KC has Bobby Witt Jr. and a lot of moxie. I don't know, I guess it'll take shape in my head as the series get underway. But I do agree 100% with Michael Schur of The Poscast: No matter how "appropriate" it may seem for the World Series to feature two megastars against each other in Shohei Ohtani (Dodgers) and Aaron Judge (Yankees), there is no universe in which the Yankees deserve another pennant, not for decades to come.