The man who started the initiative to split California into six separate states might just get his wish after the Major League Baseball postseason.
As the season came to a close, the division titles came down to some pretty tight races.
In the American League, the Eastern Division to be specific, the Baltimore Orioles beat out the New York Yankees to end Derek Jeter’s long career earlier than New York fans had hoped for. As for the Central Division, the race was split by the Detroit Tigers and the Kansas City Royals, but the Tigers were able to pull ahead at the last second and take the division title.
Bringing it closer to home, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim slid past the Oakland Athletics and sprinted to the end of the season with a 10-game lead over Oakland. However, it wasn’t the end of the season for the Royals or the Athletics as they took the top two Wild Card spots to head to a winner-takes-all, do-or-die, one-game series.
Despite having a 29-year playoff drought, the Kansas City Royals were able to take the win from the visiting Oakland Athletics and advance to the American League Division Series against another California team: the Angels.
In the National League, starting with the Eastern Division, the Washington Nationals were able to win the division title by a landslide of 17 wins over the New York Mets while the St. Louis Cardinals held on just long enough to win a division title of their own by two games over the Pittsburgh Pirates. But, to the dismay of all the local Giants fans, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the National League West with a six-game lead over San Francisco.
The Giants got a second chance at the playoffs by flying out to Pittsburgh for another one-game series; the losers would go home and watch the rest of the playoffs from their couches. This time, the Giants would not disappoint their local fans, as they shutout the Pirates eight to nothing. Staying on the road, the Giants moved on to face the Washington Nationals.
With the division series kicking off, three California teams are still on the hunt for a World Series Championship. The Angels have dropped their first two games (of a five-game series) to the Royals, so the chances of a California World Series are looking slim. It is still too early to tell whether or not the Giants will be playing their division rivals, the Dodgers, for the National League Championship.