It was getting late, so I turned out the lights in the den and headed upstairs.  As I walked down the hall, I thought I heard crying from the boys' room, so I stuck my head inside.

"Everything okay?" I asked.

"Nothin'," said Scooter, my 13 year-old.

"He's being a jerk!" said Skipper, my 10 year-old.

"You're just a big baby," Scooter snapped back at him.

"And you're a stupid doody-head," Skipper said through tears.

"What's this all about?" I asked in my most mature and concerned tone of voice.  Probably about a broken Transformer.

Skipper and Scooter, in happier times.

"Scooter says the Red Sox aren't going to be the American League Wild Card team this year!" Skipper said.

"Scoots--is that true?" I asked.

"Sure it's true--so what?"  

Transformer--Devastator, to be precise.

"That means they won't get a pennant," Skipper blurted out.  "And they won't make the playoffs, and I won't be able to stay up late in October and watch Bud Selig pretend like he's having fun at 10 p.m. Eastern, 9 p.m. Central time when he's freezing his butt off."  He plunged his head into his pillow and started to cry.

"That does it.  From now on, only teams with domes can make the playoffs."

I looked up at the wall and counted off the Red Sox Wild Card Winner pennants my boys had collected over the years--1998, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005.  It had been so long since the Sox won the American League East--1995--they weren't old enough to remember.  All they had ever experienced was the skin-of-your-teeth experience of fighting it out with all the other second-best teams in your league to win the wild card, and the chintzy memorabilia you were left with if your team didn't make it past the Division Series.

"Skipper, come on--don't take it so hard," I said.  "The White Sox made it to World Series two years ago, and they weren't the wild card."

Slowly, Skipper turned his head and looked towards me.  "They weren't?"

"Nope.  It is entirely possible to win the World Series without winning the wild card."

"See--I told you, stunod!" Scooter yelled at his little brother.

"I am not a stunod!" Skipper screamed back.

"Wait a minute guys--what's a stunod?" I asked, hoping to calm them down a bit.

Donuts--spell it backwards.

"It's just 'donuts' spelled backwards," Scooter said.

"He's saying I'm stupid!" Skipper said, tears forming in his eyes again.

"Skipper--he's got a point," I said.  "You don't have to win the Wild Card to be the World Champion--or at least that part of it that's located in the continental U.S. plus Toronto."

"You don't?"

"Well, lately it helps.  A Wild Card team won the World Series in 1997, 2002, 2003 and 2004.  Back in the old days, you had to come in first in your league to get to the World Series."

"What was that like?" Scooter asked.

"Those were hard times.  No matter how many beers and razor blades there were to sell, advertisers couldn't buy a thirty-second spot in the ALDS or even the ALCS.  It was the World Series or nothing."

"The playoffs are fun!"

"Gosh," Skipper said with a serious tone that seemed out of place coming from someone wearing SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas.  "I guess we're really lucky, huh?"

"That's right, son.  You get to crawl into school all bleary-eyed with a note from Mom instead of trying to sneak a transistor radio into Geography class to listen to when you should be learning about the People's Republic of China."

"What's that?" Scooter asked.

Sometimes I'm appalled at how little kids are learning these days.  "Scooter," I said with a note of reproach in my voice.  "I'm surprised at you."

"You don't know anybody from China?"

"Sorry dad."

"You should know that China is where Yao Ming is from!"

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman