It was a distinction made 72 years ago, a decision promulgated by the absolute supreme law of the land. Nine wise men cloaked in black robes said this: baseball is a game.

The question was whether baseball was subject to anti-trust legislation, the new weapon used to break up monopolies and eliminate trade restraints hindering the free market. Baseball was not in interstate commerce, said the Supreme Court. And it was not a business organization. No, a pastime was for entertainment purposes, a diversion for a war-weary nation.

Baseball, the most special sport in the nation, was given an equally special exemption. Politics would not be allowed to pervade this pristine game.

Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was the commencing boss, a judge with conviction minus leniency. Baseball would not be tampered with. Right, Shoeless Joe?

The anti-trust question resurfaced in 1972. In that same year, player representative Marvin Miller choreographed a 13-day strike because baseball players didn't have proper pension. Organized labor in a game. Are the Teamsters about fun? Still, baseball was, again, deemed a game.

But in 1994, a new brief has been submitted to the court. With the eloquence of a Brandeis and the subtlety of a Limbaugh, Senator Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio offered this on the "game" of baseball.

"The Baltimore Orioles were sold for $173 million," he said.

Today, the inmates are running the asylum. There is no commissioner, just Bud Selig, the man who is doing for baseball what Roseanne Arnold does for evening wear. The owners are running the business they own.

"Giving them free reign to decide what's good for baseball," Metzenbaum argued before the Anti-Trust committee, "is like giving OPEC free reign to set world energy policy."

Interesting that this new three-division playoff system was one of the first actions partaken by this western world cartel. The owners ousted Fay Vincent, empowered themselves, and decided they would makes their own rules. After all, it is their game.

It was a business decision made by businessmen. It is about more money, not about more excitement and more fun. Sample this for excitement: "We don't have to beat out the Braves," says Expo Larry Walker, "because now we can still make the playoffs as a wildcard."

The baseball season goes 162 games deep -- longer than any other in sports. It is a season about attrition. Surviving the sweltering dog days with a swagger will be the best teams. More playoffs dilutes the value of the battle, giving four extra two-bit squads the chance to prove that 162 games were an aberration, a mistake.

In basketball, it is often the best teams reaching the finals. The odds of a lesser team prevailing in best-of-seven is slim. It is the same players, the same defenses each night. Upsets are possible, just not as probable.

In baseball, where pitching is king, an off-day for a hurler can now mean the dethroning of a team. A bad outing or two in the wildcard round and the season can abruptly end.

More playoffs reduce the chance of the best team becoming champions. Unlike any other sport, the baseball season is a mechanism designed to allow the paramount to emerge. Adding more playoffs is like tinkering with a precise Swiss watch by trying to add more gears, gears that is, which are made of gold.

Playoffs will provide the owners with more network greenbacks, funding they need to alleviate a salary structure they themselves created. This was a decision made in the best interest of business. Not the best interest of baseball. No matter. Today, more than ever, those two are one in the same.