Among other things, Baseball's managers got together this week to discuss possible expansion of MLB's playoffs and possibly adding new teams to the AL. There are many ways to do this, and I would like to know what fellow FishStriper's think would be the best way to go about this.

Here's just my idea of what might be the best way to organize things.

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Today, to fit in with the Valentine's Day theme, ESPN Classics ran four baseball games that they thought were the four greatest "heartbreakers" in baseball history. The four games were

1973- One-game playoff between Red Sox and Yankees

1997- World Series Game 7

1986- World Series Game 6 between the Red Sox and the Mets (the famous "ball between the legs" game)

2003- NLCS Game 6

Of particular note, the Marlins were on the winning end of two of these games. Naturally, the Steve Bartman incident is here, but I was wondering why the 1997 World Series game was included as well. Yes, the Marlins tied the game in the bottom of the ninth inning, and later won the game, but is that really one of the most heartbreaking moments in baseball history? Do you think the Marlins have a reputation as "heartbreakers" considering two of these games involved the Marlins?

Today, Major League Baseball released the tentative schedules for next year. In case you didn't know by now, we start off the year at Citifield, before coming home for our home opener against the Dodgers. We end the year with a four game series at home against the Pirates. Perusing over the schedule, here are just some of my thoughts.

-We have a twenty-games-in-twenty-days stretch for most of the month of May, which is the longest stretch.

- I don't know if you noticed, but this year, we played a lot of games against the Braves late in the season, especially in August. That trend will continue next year: we don't play them for the first time until late May.

-We will see a lot of the Pirates (8 games), Brewers (8 games) and Padres (9 games). No complaints here (but you never know what they'll be like next year...). In addition, we will barely see the Cardinals (5 games).

-The NL East is supposed to play the AL Central next year for Interleague, but it seems like the Marlins were instead put into the filler role, since we play the Orioles (AL East), White Sox (AL Central) and the Rangers (AL West) in addition to our six games with Tampa.

What do you think about our schedule next year, assuming nothing changes?

Just another attempt to piece together the remaining games and see how likely we are to get to the playoffs.

The Marlins are currently at 72-65.

The teams to beat are the Rockies (78-60), Giants (76-62), and don't forget that there's always the Phillies (77-58). The Braves (70-67) are also still a hot streak away from rejoining the race.

A whopping 18 out of our last 25 games are against the NL East though that is not exactly unusual. Let's start with the current task at hand.

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