Wild and Whacky Reg Season finish

Going into the final 4 game set all 4 division titles were still up for grabs. In fact, only Boston and St. Louis had a post season appearance clinched. Lets look at how each played out:

NL East: St. Louis had a 2 game lead over the NY Mets, but failed to take care of business and lost 3 of 4 to the '59 Braves. The Mets returned the favor and backed in by losing 3 of 4 to the '79 Phillies who were just playing out the string. It should be intersting to see which of these two teams can gain some momentum in the post season. LA, who finished in 3rd in the West had a better record than the Mets and the same record as the Cards and is on the outside looking in.

NL West: The '82 Dodgers were sitting pretty 2 games up on Milwaukee and 3 games up on Cincy. All they need was to split their series vs the '04 Cubs who needed a sweep to get back into the NL East race. LA dropped 3 of 4, while Milwaukee was winning 3 of 4 from STL and Cincy swept the Pirates, who had their bags packed for weeks. That left Milwaukee and Cincy tied for the division (MKE had the tie breaker) and LA on the outside looking in. LA's mgr George B must feel snakebit as the Dodgers have had 2 straight late season collapses for him. In KOD 1 his '81 squad was fatigued beyond belief and dropped 10 of their final 11. In KOD2 they had a rough final series, but didn't really collapse. Cincy and Milwaukee played lights out down the stretch.

AL East: Boston came into the final series up by 2 games over '07 Det, but feeling unsure about themselves after getting swept by Minnesota. The Sawx took 3 of 4 from KC to clinch the division and in the process damaged KC's playoff chances. DET dropped 3 of 4 to the moribound '06 Angels and wound up having to play a play in playoff game vs '49 CLE who swept the pittiful 1980 A's.

AL West: Going into the final stanza there was a 3 way tie for the division lead, with 2 of the 3 teams playing each other h2h ('88-MIN vs '60-CHW). With KC already dropping 3 of 4 to Boston, the winner of the h2h series would take the division outright. The Twins, as they have all season rose to the top and took 3 of 4 from the Pale Hose to win the west. By virtue of losing 3 the South Siders were forced into a 1 game playoff vs the Royals. Chicago won the coin flip to host the all important game.