Will Al Yellon following Kyle's post about the possibility of postseason pandemonium in the AL Wildcard, I got to thinking about a legitimate solution to the problem. I think a neutral site playoff would be the best solution for all involved and there's nowhere more neutral than Milwaukee.
Lifting from Yellon:
October 3, 2012
End of 2012 MLB regular season
October 5, 2012
Wild Card playoff games
October 6, 2012
Division Series begins
Borrowing heavily from my comment on the article:
With 3+ teams, it almost seems like a neutral site splitting revenues would be the best solution for the teams’ travel schedules. It’s not like any of them would have a strong case for a home game since they all have the same record. The games would be played on Thursday and Friday.
Depending upon how you draw it up, there will need to be 2-4 games played. If you're insistent on every decision being made "on the field" then it's at least 3 games.
The Brewers won’t be using Miller Park’s retractable roof in October and it’s about as neutral as a location gets for the AL teams in contention both in terms of geography and being an NL stadium. In the event of a Thursday doubleheader, East coast teams could start at 6 pm ET, West coast teams start 4 hours later 7 pm PT so it’s even possible to make it TV-friendly while still getting the locals out by about midnight. The retractable roof guarantees the games will be played without any weather concerns.
I think Milwaukee baseball fans, given notice, could make attendance respectable since they've already done it before watching Zambrano pitching the Cubs' most recent no-hitter in a neutral site makeup game.
So how about it? Does Milwaukee make sense as a neutral site? How far would you drive to watch the games? Would MLB even consider it, in the first place?