All the drama of Major League Baseball came down to the last night of the regular season. The Tampa Bay Rays provided 8th, 9th, and 12th inning dramatics to win a playoff berth, while The Orioles provided some more drama to eliminate the Red Sox from the playoffs. Over in the National League, the Atlanta Braves were eliminated with a loss.

While the baseball gods couldn’t script a better night, it may have also been too much. The lead-up into the playoffs was so dramatic that the playoffs seem uninspiring in comparison. The teams that should have made it did, and there were a few cinderella teams, but the one thing the MLB needed right now was two extremely popular teams to make it to the World Series. They needed a seven game series, home runs, pitching excellence, and stadiums full of towel waving fans. Without this, it’ll be another boring year.

Last season’s World Series drew the smallest TV audience ever. And while I like to think that it has to do with the Giants being overrated, I’m guessing that it had to do more with the fact that for fans outside of Dallas and San Francisco, no one cared. It wasn’t even that this happened to be a fluke year for World Series ratings. Over the past few years, the number of people tuning in has steadily decreased, and this year’s has turned out to be no different.

What could have saved this season’s World Series won’t happen. The MLB needed a Yankees-Phillies World Series. That isn’t going to happen, because the MLB’s two most advertised teams choked in the first round of the playoffs. They couldn’t make it out of the first round, so now the most famous athlete who could make it to the big game will be Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals. Sure, he’s incredibly talented, but the MLB doesn’t spend the money on his marketing like they do on Derek Jeter or Roy Halladay.

The Phillies clinched a playoff spot weeks before any other teams. The MLB Network Twitter page had posed a question: Is this Phillies rotation the best to pitch in the playoffs? Millions of fans responded with their agreement. It seemed as if the Phillies rotation was going to be the deciding factor in their World Series win. But what happened this past Friday night? They choked. Instead of wondering if Halladay would become the next Roger Clemens, I’m starting to wonder if he’ll be the next Ubaldo Jimenez.

The inevitable winner of the World Series is now going to be a smaller market team. If the Milwaukee Brewers win the World Series, the fans in Milwaukee might go crazy, but fans in Boston will still be drowning their sorrows in their Sam Adams beer, wondering if it’ll be another 100 years before the next World Series. I’ll still watch the World Series and root for whatever team has the best mascot, but I’ll have the biggest smile on my face because the winner won’t be the Yankees or the Phillies. However, baseball commissioner Bud Selig better have some tricks up his sleeve because people simply won’t watch the World Series.

hrutt@mavs.coloradomesa.edu