Today feels different.
Yes, we have the final standings and the numbers, but if I’m being honest, October baseball doesn’t really begin until the Wild Card.
This is the day when everything resets. Think about it as a race. You’ve spent 162 games racing to get to the perfect position to end it all, but it’s what you do here that truly decides it all. The moments we’ll remember years from now start right here.
The Wild Card has always been special because it’s a sudden burst of urgency. In a game where the better team usually wins over time, that can change in a snap because, in such a short series, it’s all about the day.
Yes. It’s unfair. Yes, it’s brutal, but that’s what makes it absolutely perfect.
Think about the moments this stage has given us: the 2021 Red Sox, winner-take-all against the Yankees, Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers doing Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers things in a 6-2 win that nobody in Boston will ever forget. The 2022 Phillies, a franchise that hadn't won a single postseason series in over a decade, broke through against the Cardinals and rode that same energy all the way to the World Series. The 2023 Diamondbacks, a team that snuck in as the sixth seed, swept the Brewers in the Wild Card round like it was nothing, and just kept rolling from there.
This is October.
Every franchise, every fanbase, every player walks into today believing anything is possible. For some, it will end in heartbreak before anything gets started. For others, this is the spark that turns into a run we’ll talk about forever.
The Wild Card is both an end and a beginning, and whether it be tonight, tomorrow, or the day after, someone will do something unforgettable. Someone will put their name in the storybooks forever and ever. Decades from now, fans will point back to this day, this moment, and say, “That’s when it all began.”
And with that, I’d like to say.
Welcome to the Wild Card Round, but most importantly.
Welcome to Postseason Baseball.