If you weren’t aware – and the chances this year that you weren’t are pretty good – the most recent Major League Baseball season has come to an end.

All season long local and national TV ratings were brutal. Worse still was the attendance. In the past three seasons, butts in seats have seen a seven percent plunge meaning 5.5 million fewer folks were taking in the games.

Now it’s post-season time when everyone’s interest in baseball is supposed to jump, yet the fine folks at MLB HQ are probably collectively thinking ”uh oh.”

‘Cause compared to last year, this could get ugly.

In 2009 the playoffs saw a 30% bump in overall TV ratings. The World Series was even more awesome as its viewership increased 42% compared to 2008.

The reason?

The teams who made it.

The ‘09 playoffs included the Cardinals, Dodgers and Red Sox – all teams with a nationwide following. The final series featured two major markets going head-to-head when the New York Yankees took on the Philadelphia Phillies. It turned out even better when NY won their 27th title and first since 2000, with their poster boy, Derek Jeter, carrying them.

This year the matchups are less captivating, to say the least. To say the most, they could all be quick and predictable snoozefests.

The playoffs start Wednesday with the Texas Rangers visiting the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays are clear favourites in the series with their 96-66 record, the 2^nd best in baseball. The Rangers are in their first postseason since 1999 and have never won a playoff series. Essentially everyone outside of Arlington is handing this one to Tampa, despite their injury troubles, which means the ALCS will feature a team few care about nationally, or even locally. The Rays, despite having probably the most exciting team in the game were 22^nd in attendance.

They will get to face, most likely, the Minnesota Twins, who take on the Yankees. The defending champs still have the most daunting offence in the game, but besides Mariano Rivera and CC Sabathia, their pitching has been a mess – especially down the stretch. MLB has scheduled all of the games in primetime for this series to try to maximize the eyeballs, but most likely it will be over quickly.

Over in the National League, the Phillies are prohibitive favourites to make their third straight appearance in the World Series because they may just have the best playoff rotation the game has seen recently. The combination of Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, and Cole Hamels could be the first three pitchers in an All-Star game, and they face a Cincinnati lineup with little to no post-season experience. This will probably go three and out.

The final series in this fearsome foursome pits Atlanta against San Francisco where the Braves just barely hung on to make it to the playoffs in the Wildcard spot, and the Giants played great down the stretch. This one should be short and ugly for the Giants.

That sets up two very inevitable championship series resulting in a probable rematch of the 2008 Series when the Rays battled unsuccessfully against the Phillies for the title.

That was lowest rated World Series in history.

October used to be owned by baseball. Now the NFL overshadows all and it’s in the meat of its season, college football games are excellent matchups, the NBA preseason begins with all its built-in media focus on the Heat and even a resurgent NHL kicks off to knock the attention down a notch.

Tough times for the national pastime.

Thank goodness we all have other stuff to do and will barely notice.

Cheers – Gavin McDougald – AKA Couch