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🪓 THE BRUSHBACK — What’s the Point of 162?

It’s that annual baseball sermon.

As the season winds down, the purists clutch their scorecards and preach about “the sanctity of the regular season.”

“What’s the point of grinding through 162 games,” they ask, “if an 84-win team can crash the postseason and waltz into the World Series?”

Back in the day, only the best record in each league punched a ticket to the Series — which is how the Yankees stacked all those trophies. It’s also why they might not sniff October this year.

Fast-forward to 2025: six division winners, six Wild Cards, and about 13 teams within six games of a spot right now. That’s 13 cities still scoreboard-watching instead of pretending to care about NFL preseason depth charts.

Yeah, some call it “participation trophy baseball” that cheapens the playoffs. Ask the ’23 D-backs if sneaking in cheapened the experience. Spoiler: they were too busy wrecking the favorites.

Here’s the thing — expanded playoffs might be the smartest thing MLB’s ever done. It’s the great equalizer. Imagine the $66M-payroll Marlins slipping in, winning the Wild Card round, and then catching the Dodgers flat after five days off. Delicious.

Dodgers and Yankees fans will call it unfair. The rest of us? We call it entertainment.

See ya Saturday.

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