I understand the frustration that Dodger, Braves, and Orioles fans feel right now, their teams won divisions and had the best season records but are no longer playing for the World Series championship. Once something different, the World Series today is a tournament, and the season records are merely tickets for entry into the tournament and the scheduling of opponents and games. Every tournament format of every sport brings to the fore the hottest team at the moment, which is not necessarily the best team of the field. Tournaments exist because they generate a lot of money and do so because of Cinderella stories. March Madness, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, basically funds the entire NCAA. My recommendations to fans are, first recognize your team just only won opportunity to play in the tournament, and next, make note of how well the team is playing in the weeks leading up to the start of the tournament. Finally, consider the possibility that the real best teams might be the ones capable of overcoming what others might claim are disadvantages.