Take me out to the ball game

By a 5-4 decision back on August 30th, the Supreme Court ruled that because the expanded roster would be going into effect tomorrow, there would no longer be time to play out the rest of the season, and therefore the standings as of August 29th would be considered the final standings.

The ruling was met by some objections from San Francisco Giants fans, who pointed out that their team was trailing in the wild card race by only two games, and that with 28 games scheduled, the results were too close to be considered final, and that the continuing count of games should continue.

Associate Justice “Tony” Lasorda permitted the case to be reviewed by the Supreme Court, stating that to not do so would cause “irreparable harm” to the season of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were then leading the Giants by two games. 

The Court ruled, 5-4, that the commonly accepted practice of “roster expansion” meant that a fair continuation of the dynamics of the league standings would be impossible, and therefor the official game status should be nullified as of that date.

By a 7-2 decision, the court ruled that a proposal by the league commissioner’s office that all September games be played with a basketball rather than with a baseball would be unfair to those teams unaccustomed to playing baseball with a basketball. Dodger fans hailed this ruling as proof that the Supreme Court strongly upheld the need to discontinue counting the games.

“The Giants have counted and counted and counted, and no matter how often they count, they are behind the Dodgers in the standings as of August 30th, Los Angeles Mayor Rick Riordan said. “It’s time to accept the fact that the Dodgers are in the playoffs, and move on.”

In the games played between the final placement of the teams, and the beginning of the playoffs five weeks later, most analysts noted that the Giants appeared to have won three more games than the Dodgers did, and thus would have finished the season a game ahead. However, Dodger partisans pointed out that if the standings had been determined by a formula proposed by the Giants, that only home games be counted after September 1st, the Dodgers would still have won by a half-game. 

Various groups had voluntarily funded the continuation of the season, even though it no longer had any official standing, in order to determine what might have happened. It had also been argued that a winning streak by the Oakland As, and the career statistics of players such as Barry Bonds and Randy Johnson, would have been impacted.

While Dodger fans argued that discontinuing official tracking of the standings before the flood of unproven rookies onto existing rosters would make a hash of actual team standings, historians noted that in other seasons, official play had continued past the September 1st roster deadline, in some cases, extending over a month beyond. There were even cases of one or three game “play-offs” in the event of a tie in the standings, although Dodger supporters were quick to point out that such extra games, like the League Championship series and the World Series, did not permit roster expansion players, or players traded after mid-August.

Supreme Court Justice “Tony” Lasorda noted in his judgement that if roster expansion players weren’t permitted in World Series play, then they should not be permitted in the critically important September “down to the wire” play.

The Independent Media Watch group, “Dodger Blue” held a press conference to address the issue of what they called “fanatical Giant fans who are frustrated because they have an inferior team.”

“These people assault the very integrity and purity of baseball with their insane efforts to overthrow the Dodger victory” group spokesman Steve Garvey said. “It is unpatriotic to refuse to accept a legitimate final league standing, and it just shows that these Giant fans don’t really have the best interests of baseball at heart.”

Some baseball fans pointed to the numerous seasons during which play in which teams were close or even tied on September 1st had been allowed to continue, and results, some of which weren’t final for another five weeks, were considered official. Some pointed to the baseball constitution, which stipulated that the Leagues are not required to turn in their final standings until two days before the start of the playoffs in October. In fact, in most seasons, most teams didn’t bother to tell anyone their final records until the first week of October, and more often than not, they counted the games played in September, whether they affected the final standings or not.

While most baseball fans questioned the legitimacy of the 2002 season results, they all agreed that Fox Sports had told them it was perfectly ok, and that the Dodgers were the true wild card champions, and that was good enough for them.

Indeed, Associate Justice Vin Scully, in a concurring opinion, stipulated that this case, "LA vs. SF" applied only to the 2002 season, and did not cover case law regarding any other season or in any other sport. So it must be good law.

Not to mention good sportsmanship.