Later today, on Saturday, September 26th, 2015, in a meaningless late-season game between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants, two teams that are not making the playoffs (it is, for the Giants, an odd-numbered year after all), a lot of the National baseball-loving community will be placing their eyes and attention on the ongoings at the O.co Coliseum. Why, because for one last time, we can see Tim Hudson and Barry Zito on the same field.
Sure, it is a marketing ploy, sure it is a meaningless game with the matchup to serve fan interest, but I love it. Millions of baseball fans love it. Barry Zito is not an MLB-caliber starting pitcher. Tim Hudson is about to retire. But 15 years ago, they were teammates, they were titans, they were leading the charge of the early-00's Oakland A's. Behind the scenes of a Moneyball and OBP-loving front office was three great pitchers who were the #1, #2 and #3 reason the Giants made the playoffs every year from 2000-2003. Now, we get to celebrate that one last time. Baseball cares about tradition, it cares about remembering these glorious days past. I love everything about the spectacle of Zito vs. Hudson. I just wonder why can't football have a similar sense of remembrance and joy.
Let's look at exactly what Zito and Hudson represents. They represent the two lasting memories of a small-market team that rose up and for four straight years made the playoffs. They also, almost as notably, lost every year in the playoffs in the ALDS. The first two times it was to the Yankees, a team no one beat back then. But then it was to the Twins, and finally the Red Sox. The A's went 0-4 in playoff series - and while that is a common retort for Billy Beane haters, no one cares. No one is calling Hudson and/or Zito chokers or the whole spectacle of their matchup something that celebrates failure. Because baseball doesn't care. But football does.
As with most things, it comes back to Manning. Peyton Manning's team is 2-0 right now. His team just went on the road, against a division rival, to play a Thursday Night game. The last time the team he faced had a home prime-time game, they beat the eventual Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots 41-14. The Chiefs took a quick 14-0 lead, against a Manning-led offense that looked completely ruined. But then it happened... Manning happened. He slowly brought them back. He tied the game with a patented 2:00 drive, which ended with a perfectly thrown, perfectly weighted and perfectly arced pass to Emmanuel Sanders. The defense, that great defense, finished off the comeback, but it was another patented Peyton Manning game - and no one seemed to care. Why? Because Manning sucks right now, of course.
We can't appreciate an all-time great in his waning years. Everyone is taking Manning's drop in play this season to spin that into their own thinking. We've seen pieces on why Manning should retire. We've seen pieces on why this proves Manning is worse than Brady, or that Manning is hurting his team, or that his team is ruined. No, we can't appreciate a guy who clearly is physically lacking still playing well enough to win football games. But we've never been able to appreciate anything about Peyton Manning - because in football you can't appreciate anything except for the playoffs.
Obviously, incredible seasons can outweigh the playoffs, like how Manning's '04 and '13 seasons will last despite playoff losses where his teams scored single-digit points. But what about his 2012 season. In March, 2012, Peyton Manning was cut by the Colts. He basically built the Colts. He basically increased Jim Irsay's net-worth ten-fold, but now he was unemployed. In his press conference, he fought back tears and said 'no one loves playing football more than me.' He worked so hard to come back from those neck surgeries, from being so bad at throwing a ball Todd Helton cried when watching him, and he returned. And not only did he return, but in his first year back with a new team and new set of teammates and coaches, he was the best QB in the NFL and his team was the best team in the regular season. And then his team lost a playoff game because a safety decided not to play safety and none of it mattered.
Why can't that stuff matter in football? Why are we so beholden to the postseason that basically for the last five or so year's of Peyton Manning's career, no matter how well he plays, the response from the media is 'none of it matters until January'. No, that is incorrect. September through December matters, and if anything it should matter more.
In baseball, October matters, sure, but so does April to September. Baseball is the only American sport where the regular season is more important. It is almost guaranteed most baseball fans can more easily name the league MVPs from 2005-2010 than the World Series MVPs in those seasons (Joe Crede, David Eckstein, Mike Lowell, Pat Burrell, Hideki Matsui, Cody Ross). Baseball has it right, it learned how to care about October, but realize that the long slog through the regular season is more important. That's why there are no 'Is Madison Bumgarner better than Clayton Kershaw' arguments. That is why we can celebrate Tim Hudson and Barry Zito resembling a team that won in April and won in September, and didn't win in October.
