It was a great month for the North American Sports League with the longest experience of sustained parity.
The favorite of the undisputed title of this year has lost in a resounding way with two last -place teams. Another power has been defeated by a sustainable rival of the division.
Half of the teams currently in the playoff series have not won a championship this century. When the playoffs start, each team will have a path to a title – as well as a convincing outing in the first round.
The 83 previous words describe the major baseball league – and not the NFL, the season of which started 13 days ago with the usual nonsense on the way it is the most competitive and unpredictable sport in our country.
Unfortunately, you will never hear that of Rob Manfred, who is too busy trying to become a meme living by rubbing your hands in anticipation of the repair of what is not broken with a lockout on December 1, 2026.
You do not hear it either declared that the reputation of the NFL as a parity league is entirely based on ancient and above all or entirely erroneous propaganda – which, to be fair, in fact a worthy national hob.
Even at the end, the brilliant Pete Rozelle aimed to generate the competitive balance in football – and before the NFL became a league in which it was impossible to win a title without a quarter -back linked to the renowned temple – the same small circle of teams tended to raise the Lombardi trophy.
Eighteen teams have won the 45 Super Bowls since 1980 (or, if you prefer this written in pretentious terms of the NFL, the XVIII teams have won the Super Bowls XLV from MCMLXX). There were 23 different winners from the World Series in the same period.
The disparity was particularly large this century, when 13 teams won the Super Bowl. There have been six different champions in the past 10 years, a period in which 10 teams have reached the big match.
Sixteen teams have won the World Series since 2000. Eight different teams have been crowned champions in the past 10 years, during which 14 teams have qualified for the fall classic.
(For the record, for all speeches on salary ceilings and parity in basketball and hockey, there were eight NBA champions and 12 conference champions and seven winners of the Stanley Cup and 13 finalists in the last decade.)
A GIANT GULF EXISTS BETWEEN THE HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS IN THE NFL, WHERE 63 Teams have won at Least 13 Games in A Season and 55 Teams have suffered at Least 13 Losses in a Season Sence 2000. But Barring a Season-Ending Surge by the Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Phillies or Toronto Blue Jays, No Baseball Team Will Win 100 Games in Full Season for the Second Straight Year-The First Such Stretch Sale A Three-Year Streak from 2012 in 2014.
The parity was widespread this month, when the title champion Los Angeles Dodgers was swept by the last Pittsburgh Pirates and lost two of the three against the last Orioles of Baltimore. The Orioles also swept the Padres de San Diego, which are firmly installed in a joker point, while the Nationals of Chicago White Sox and Washington won the Cere series and the Chicago Cubs, which are on the way to win the AL Central and the first NL Wild Card respectively.
Three of the four first -round Byes will probably go to the Brewers, Tigers and Blue Jays, who have combined to win three titles in the last 50 seasons – as many crowns as the Kansas City chiefs have won since 2019.
Baseball is far from perfect, and a long -term problem will develop if the dodgers have understood the hack of life that allows them to sleep during the regular season before entering Hyperdrive in October.
But with 13 days before the start of the Wild Card, the results of this season and recent history strongly suggest that any team that reaches the playoffs has a legitimate chance of winning everything. It would be good if Manfred, with a network managed by the League at its disposal as well as games on each network and streamer that you have heard of (and a few that you do not have), could spend a little time talking about it and a little less time to worry about what awaits in 2026 and beyond.
