Survivor Party Games

Postseason problems revisited

It ought to be the best race in baseball. Ought to be.

It's Red Sox and Yankees -- two teams you might have heard about -- separated by one game in the standings, with 46 games to play.

If Major League Baseball, the ESPN television network and poets around the continent could design their perfect stretch-drive script, this would be it, right?

Except for one minor glitch:

It's all about as meaningful as the fourth quarter of an NFL preseason game.

Essentially we know right now, with a month and a half left in the season, both of those teams are going to be playing in October. And if you think it still matters who wins the East and who makes it as a wild card, go ask the 2010 Rays. Or the 2004 Yankees.

Under this playoff format, it barely matters. That's too bad. But that's a fact.

The good news is, baseball has figured out a solution: Add an extra wild-card team and force the two wild cards to battle each other just to live to play in the Division Series and voila -- you have produced massive incentive to finish first.

But here comes the bad news: Despite what you may have heard, very possibly from your favorite commissioner of baseball, there's now almost no chance this sport will be expanding the postseason by next year.

And it's far from a lead-pipe lock that an expanded postseason will be part of the next labor deal at all.

That news may come as a shock to anyone who read Bud Selig's quote a few months ago that this change was "inevitable." But we're getting the impression a crazy thing happened behind the scenes on the way to that inevitability:

Nobody has been able to agree on much of anything. Imagine that.

We know both sides think expanding the postseason is a swell idea. But beyond that? They're going to need to figure out a whole bunch of details. And we're hearing that part isn't going so hot.

We've had to piece this tale together from numerous conversations with people around the sport, because the labor talks are taking place in total secrecy, complete with a pact of silence from everyone involved.

But enough tidbits on this particular topic have seeped out to others within the industry that they could at least paint us a picture of where the big roadblocks are located.

So here is where it appears they're running into trouble:

The players view expanding the postseason as just one piece in a much larger jigsaw puzzle. We know this because union chief Michael Weiner laid out the players' vision last month in a meeting with the Baseball Writers Association of America.

Survivor party

Yes, we used real machetes. We realize that they are not very kid-safe to have around, and we certainly didn’t treat them as toys. We cautioned all the kids that they were not to touch them during the challenge or at any other time, and only an adult was allowed to use them. We also kept them in their protective sleeve when not in use. Machetes are such an iconic part of the real Survivor show that we just had to include them somehow!

Each tribe chooses one caller, who will stand on the mat the entire time. The remaining 6 players are blindfolded, paired up, and tied together by their wrists. The caller directs the blindfolded pairs around the challenge area, helping them pick up boxes in their color, and returning them to the tribe mat. Once a tribe has all four boxes back, they may remove their blindfolds and begin untying the ropes around the boxes, releasing a key. Once all four keys are released, they are passed to a single player who runs to the chained box and begins unlocking the padlocks. When all locks are free, the box is opened to reveal a machete. An ADULT member of the tribe walks (do not run!) with the machete to the flag area and cuts the rope holding that tribe’s flag up. The first tribe to unfurl its flag wins! Each tribe chooses two people to inflate the surfboard with their mouths (no pumps!) When the surfboard is inflated as much as they want, they hand it off to one person who is the swimmer. The swimmer uses the surfboard to paddle out to the buoy, where he retrieves the 2 buckets matching his tribe colors. The buckets are handed to the two kids — one is waiting on the mat and the other is standing next to the pipe in the sand. The player on the mat runs to the shore and scoops up water, which she then throws to the other player, who catches it and dumps it into the pipe. The throwing player must keep one foot on the mat at all times, and the catching player must keep one foot touching the pipe at all times. When the pipe is full, the ping pong balls will come out. The final player takes the ping pong balls and balances them on the cardboard circle (without holding them!) and walks towards the finish line. If the balls fall off, he starts over. The first tribe across the finish line wins! 3 adult tribe members walk over the balance beam, one at a time, carrying a ball over their head. When one player gets across, he throws the ball back to the next player, who is waiting.

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