Let me preface this by saying that I am a HUGE fan of the Houston Astros and baseball in general. I am the guy who lives and dies for his team every day during the course of a 162 game schedule.

In a sport where a good team loses 75 games in a year the ebb and flow of a baseball season can cause even a sane man to question his mental state. For me there is no question. So it is not easy that I mock my favorite MLB team publicly.

I was jumping for joy on that beautiful Sunday a couple weeks ago as the men in brick red (or from the 90's blue and gold or from the 80's rainbow or from the 70's orange) clinched the final playoff spot in the National League. They did so by winning the Wild Card spot in the playoffs. For many of you readers that may not be familiar with sports, as you focus more on hacking into my computer and stealing my personal identity, the wild card is a last resort for a team that is good but not great. It is the best of the rest.

It is also a chance for Major League Baseball to make a lot more money by expanding the playoffs another entire round and make billions in TV revenue. I know that is hard to believe that a sports league would change it's rules solely to gain more revenue, but it happened.

My euphoria over this exciting event turned to bewilderment as I watched my beloved team pull out caps, t-shirts and banners with the phrase 2005 Wild Card Champions proudly displayed.

Champions!?! (Please make official note of my overuse of punctuation for effect).

This may rank as the boldest and most overstated accomplishment since rinderpest.com claimed the title of Greatest Web Site Named for a Bovine Intestinal Disease. I know the folks at paratuberculosis.com are not happy about that claim.

Wild Card Champions? Winning the Wild Card is like winning Miss Arkansas. There are a lot of beautiful women in the U.S., you just weren't competing against any of them. It's like having the title "Most Intelligent Professional Wrestler" or "Purest Hilton Sister". The title of "Most Conservative at a Cindy Sheehan Rally" has more legitimacy.

This falls right into the category of our nation becoming complacent with finishing second, third or in this case fourth. You can place this claim of Wild Card Champions in the same column with those people that believe in Little League Baseball every kid should bat every inning and every team get a trophy. It's nice and the kid feels good for a few minutes but what lessons are learned? It's okay to finish last?

Did you know that there are over 100 youth baseball tournaments in the United States that use the term "World Series" in their titles? There was a "World Series" tournament in Beaumont, Texas this year that featured teams from as far away as Lake Charles, Louisiana and Houston, Texas. I hope their equipment didn't get held up at Customs. And we thought that the whole World is Flat concept was myopic.

Don't get me wrong. I am not a "Rah-Rah" sports dad pushing his kid to perfection. I am not going to go all "Marinovich" on my son and have him doing crunches every night at age two. And I do think that every kid should play every game in Little League and that there are rewards even for those teams that don't finish first. But please help me draw a line in the sand.

Winning the Wild Card in the National League is a good accomplishment but not as great as winning the division, which St. Louis did with 11 more wins than the Astros. For the record I am against the phrase Division Champions as well. I don't think that the term Champions should be used until you have won your sports ultimate title. I hope and pray that the Astros win the World Series and we can truly call them Champions.

But until then they are watering down accomplishment faster than Brittney Spears is watering down the gene pool. I just wish that the teams that win the Wild Card would have a mild celebration, be thankful for the opportunity and get on with the business of beating their playoff opponent.

For perspective, were I to adhere to this convention of being loose with the term "champion", here are some of the titles I would hold:

• Yard Mowing Champion of Voxtaur Household

• Most Foul Smelling Flatulence Champion of Voxtaur Household

• Table Saw Champion of Voxtaur Household

• Heavy Lifting Champion of Voxtaur Household

• Maxim Magazine Reading Champion of Voxtaur Household

• Leaving Empty Toilet Rolls on the Dispenser Champion of Voxtaur Household

• Leaving the Seat Up Champion of Voxtaur Household

Sadly none of these titles came with any celebratory hats and banners. There was no call from the President congratulating me on any of these feats. Although I was ceremoniously knighted with a mop handle for the last two.

Take my advice and enjoy the baseball playoffs � those of you on the East Coast fortunate enough to work the graveyard shift can watch them at work � and root for the home team. And if your team is knocked out of the playoffs in a three game sweep in the first round you can always claim they are the Expeditiously Departed from the Division Series Champions 2005.

Sincerely
Voxtaur
October 16, Sports Writing Champion Rinderpest.com