1.   An expanded playoff format, and the re-emergence of the New York Yankees as a possible World Series draw, went down the drain.

2.   An expanded playoff format prevents a Houston-Phoenix finals rematch.

3.   As with expanded playoffs in professional sports, the football division races add spice to end-of-season games.

4.   Attacking the problem from the competitive direction, Gord Ash of Toronto suggested the possibility of expanded playoffs.

5.   Baseball has responded with the expanded playoff system and interleague play.

6.   But contend, even in this age of expanded playoffs?

7.   But if the season ended today, these teams would meet again in the first round of the expanded playoffs.

8.   In other words, the expanded playoffs did for baseball right out of the box exactly what they have been doing all these years for the other sports.

9.   Interleague play makes baseball look just that much more like the NBA, the way that expanded playoffs have.

10.   The expanded playoff format was a commercial, emotional and artistic success.