ONE WEEK OF REGULAR SEASON BASEBALL LEFT
With the regular season coming to an end in Major League Baseball, there is a lot of potential for an exciting finish. There are still three races worth paying attention to...The AL West, the NL West and the NL Wild Card.

Personally I prefer Divisional races to Wild Card races. One of the things I don't like about the Wild Card is how confusing the race can get. The NL Wild Card race between San Francisco and Chicago could turn into a wild-card race between Houston and Los Angeles in a few days. The Wild Card does keep a lot of teams more competitive down the stretch in baseball, but it's not like the extra teams competing have taken baseball to a new level of fan interest. In 2004 the attendance numbers for most clubs are still lower than the pre-strike levels of the late 1980's and early 1990's.

And anyway, why pay attention to the Wild Card race when you can pay attention to the "Will the Brewers finish in last place?" race or the "Will the Brewers finish off worse than last year" race?