Answer: A baseball purist is a grungy, old, curmudgeon who thinks the divisional playoffs in baseball are a classic example in sports of sensationalism over substance.

We baseball purists are regarded as rusty, crusty, musty, dusty, remnants of days gone by. We are dinosaurs, anachronistic relics of the past, over-the-hill, one foot in the grave. In short, we ain't with it. "I'll be glad when your dead, you old, rascal, you."

Every word of it is true. But we know we are right when it comes to the silly antics of modern baseball.

Our Cardinals are wrapping up the long, 162 game, season where they have played through one injury after another and have emerged as clearly the best team in the National League. Now they will go to the World Series.

Wrong!!

Now they will have to enter a puny, little, 5 game, play-off to prove that they are good enough to enter another puny, little, 7-game play-off to decide which team is truly the National League Champ.

Baloney!!! (A variation of bologna, but still baloney.)

Twelve games in baseball is nothing but a pimple on a wrinkle on an ant's behind. Normally the Chicago Cubs are in first place after the first 50 games. We all know what happens after that.

Baseball -- in terms of great teams, and individuals -- is a game of proven performance over a long period of time. Cold streaks and hot streaks over the long season are as common as a day at the office. The good teams survive cold streaks and eventually prevail.

Not so in divisional play-offs. You better be hot, and right now!! Otherwise it's farewell and good-bye. The long season is just a bitter memory.

The last three World Series winners have been "Wild Card" teams. This is not exactly a giant step for mankind, since it means that in the regular season they didn't even win their own crummy, little, division.

And those divisions....in the American League West you only have to beat three other teams to make the play-offs. At least the other divisions have to beat four other teams, except in the Central Division of the National League that has six teams. That's where the Cardinals are.

At the present time, San Diego, -- leader of the National League West -- has lost more games than they have won. They have an excellent chance to enter the play-offs with a losing season. They could get hot and win the whole thing. Nothing could please the mods more: Sensationalism over substance. The plain truth is that the mods wouldn't know class if it hit them in the .... (that word that rhymes with class.)

"Good for baseball," the mods say about divisional play-offs. Maybe. Just maybe. We know they are good for the owners and TV contracts. We also know they bring out the know-nothings who haven't watched a game all year, and suddenly become aficionados. The play-offs extend so far into the fall these people think baseball players wear snow suits.

With both leagues actively involved, the play-offs last so long the World Series becomes an after thought. One reason the Super Bowl is so successful is that there is a lull after the regular season in football. Then starts a promotional hype that makes World War II look like a minor skirmish, Can't do that after the play-offs in baseball, unless you want winter winds sweeping through the ball parks.

"But there are so many teams now," say the mods. What about those 15 other teams in the National League. We purists have some wonderful suggestions.

Suggestion one: Tell them to pack up and go home.

Suggestion two: Let them form meaningless, little, bowl games like the college football kids do -- playing to an empty house. How about the "Futility Bowl," or the "Wild Card Bowl."

Suggestion Three: Wait till next year.

Hurrah for baseball purists at home and abroad!!! We are a dying breed, and we know it. But we like being contrary.