Wild Card merchandise? Are you serious?

I open the paper this morning and something disjointed on the sports page caught my eye. Yeah, the Crew celebrating with champagne was weird enough, but it was actually something else.

The Brewer players were all wearing "2008 National League Wild Card" merchandise. Ok, I know the Crew hasn't won dukey squat in a generation and more, but the last time I checked, the "Wild Card" wasn't actually a title... it was merely a qualification... on a technicality.

Back in the day it meant you slipped into the playoffs... it didn't mean you won something. In fact, it meant that even though you fell up short, you did just good enough to get in. Yeah... it set you up to win something, but it wasn't a championship in itself. It wasn't something to sell merchandise over. It was something to thankfully accept and then go forth and take advantage of. But here was the Crew wearing 2008 National League "Wild Card" shirts. As though "Wild Card" was a seperate division or something.

Hey Antlerheads, how sweet would it be if the Bucks sort of slid into the NBA playoffs with the 8th seed and they started selling "Milwaukee Bucks 2008-09 NBA Eastern Conference 8th Seed" merchandise. Come to think of it... they sort of did (remember those lame-o "Bucks Play-offs" t-shirts they couldn't give away faster than the team was dismissed by the Pistons in '06?)