Fall brawl
Despite the Cubs' loss in Game 1, the NLCS looks to be a lot of fun, even if most people would rather not see the Marlins in the World Series, or else take away a lot of the luster of the Fall Classic. You know Fox would love to see Cubs in the World Series, and either AL team would be a huge jackpot.

With that said, what in the world is up with the split telecast of Game 1 of the ALCS and Game 2 of the NLCS? Wouldn't a situation like this call for the NLCS to be an afternoon game and the ALCS getting prime-time attention or vice versa?

Granted, it's one night, but this is the time for both series to have the spotlight on their own. I can flip back and forth between Fox and FX at home (or have two TVs going at work), but what about places without cable or without FX? And the list of cities getting each telecast on the local on-air Fox station is a bit random as well.

It's anecdotal evidence ...
But one of the better things so far from the playoffs was this amazing and scathing piece from Tom Verducci on Oakland's collapse. For all the Moneyball talk, it's hard to dismiss nine straight losses in clinching games, especially when there's a huge dismissal of "clutch" hitting by Beane and friends. But I guess "choke" hitting, pitching, defense, baserunning, etc. does exist -- you can quantify that just by taking the A's stats in those nine games.

To put this in a quizbowl context, I wouldn't be surprised if Beane and his disciples would want to ditch the playoffs altogether and just award the championship to the team with the best overall record at the end of the regular season, since all those models for creating a great team supposedly go out the window in a playoff tournament format (we'll save the discussion of best-of-5 and best-of-7 for another day).