Major League Baseball So Far in 2017

Now that the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League are finally done with their extensive playoffs and football is supposed to be in the off-season, Major League Baseball is now in the spotlight.  Sure, there is Major League Soccer, but general soccer interest in the United States is still low compared to the rest of the world...besides, the officiating in this league is so horrendous that it is an arduous experience to sit through the games.  Furthermore, for a league that is supposed to be trying to grow in general popularity, MLS has made their games difficult for the casual sports viewer to access with irregular schedules and exclusive premium channels for the already die-hard fans.  But with baseball, I know that I can expect weekend games on Fox and ESPN...and my Gainesville cable provider carries the channels showing the Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins games: much more reasonable than American pro soccer.  And baseball has its own premium channel lineup as well for the sports fanatic who doesn't mind paying a little extra.  But it still knows how to promote itself to the general public...

What's happening in the baseball standings so far?  As of today, the teams have played 64 to 71 games, putting them somewhere between a third and half of the way through the 162-game regular season.  Each league has three divisions, and the two runner-up teams with the overall best record in each league join the divisional winners in making the postseason playoffs...so even if one team is running away from the others, there's still hope among the rest of the field.  Right now, in the American League it's the New York Yankees, Minnesota Twins, and Houston Astros as the divisional leaders.  But New York and Minnesota each lead their respective rivals Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians by only one game while Houston in the West has a massive 11-game lead over second place Texas.  As for the American League wild card playoff spots, the chase is wide open with most of the league in the hunt.  Were the season to end today the two wild card teams would be Boston and Cleveland.  In the National League, there is a similar situation with the leaders: one division, the East, has the Washington Nationals running away with a  10-game advantage over second place Miami while the two other divisions have close races: the Milwaukee Brewers lead defending World Series champions Chicago Cubs by two and a half games and the Colorado Rockies are ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks by a game...the latter two not only have identical win-loss records at 44-26, but are also far ahead of the other National League teams regarding the wild-card chase.  Of course, right now, they're just thinking of winning their division...

"My" Florida teams are playing respectably, and that's all I expect from them.  Tampa Bay and Miami have both had their streaks, both winning and losing.  The Rays are 35-35, but have lost three straight and while in third place are only a game ahead of the cellar dwellers in their division.  The Marlins, who began the season poorly, have been playing catchup ever since and have managed to climb into second place behind Washington with a 30-35 record.  But right now it's Tampa Bay with better playoff prospects...unless one of the three leaders in the National League West starts to slump, giving other teams in the field a shot...

I don't watch very much baseball, but usually there are at least one or two games each week in which I watch several innings.  I've gotten used to watching the almost nonstop action of soccer (when the referees aren't unduly interfering with its flow with their quick whistles) and sometimes find the mannequin-like inaction of the players in baseball a little unsettling...there seems to be more going on in the dugouts than on the field.  Two structurally very different sports, baseball and soccer...yet I like both, one of the reasons being that they are more talent-based and allow for players with smaller builds such as myself to flourish and excel, unlike with football and basketball...