There's a couple of playoffs going on, each runs a little different and I want to go over that before getting into my main point for the day. I originally was going to have something up today about football, perhaps that's just best left for tomorrow. Most of you are familiar with the MLB playoff currently underway. It's changed alot in just 20 years, what with the introduction of the Wild Card and now the Wild Card Playoff, as well as the additional division in each league. So let's look at the other two playoffs going on right now, the wrapping of the Honkbal Hoofdklasse (to delineate from the football division of the same name in the Netherlands), and the beginning of the NPB's Climax Series.
I'll get into the Climax series first. A while back, the NPB decided to lengthen the playoffs a bit instead of just the highest ranked of the Central versus the Pacific League. So the second and third place of each league have a 3-game series before facing off against the 1st in the league in the road to the final series.
It's fairly simple compared to the Hoofdklasse. The season is split into a first and second half. The second half starts off at zero so that there can be two separate winners for the first and second half, which the winners of both face off in the Holland Series game of 7. The L&D Amsterdam Pirates are longtime rivals of DOOR Neptunus, both having won the Holland Series multiple times. One part that is unique to the Hoofdklasse is relegation. The Play Down series of 5 runs at the same time as the Holland Series.
In the Play Downs, the last place team of the Hoofdklasse plays the top team of the Honkbal Overgangsklasse, the second division. This year it was Mampaey The Hawks against DSS, representing their respective leagues. I've been rather fascinated, DSS battling for glory and advancement, The Hawks merely to stay alive, to avoid relegation to the lower league. As the game today took place and DSS's version of small ball overcame Mampaey, a sort of sadness occured to me, the tragedy of the fact that this team, despite their efforts in the same game to advance 2 years ago, wold be forced back down. Two years ago, the relegated team declared bankruptcy and folded, hopefully a unique and one time. Certainly DSS has more to prove in the next year but they are an exciting team to watch. The whole thing has me thinking about how the process could potentially work in the MLB. I'll have more on that another time.
Welcome to the Hoofdklasse, DSS. Hope you survive the experience.
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