Wild Card

JAIME GARCIA homered off Bronson Arroyo and pitched into the seventh inning, helping the St. Louis Cardinals clinch a tie for the second NL wild card and spoil Dusty Baker's return from a mini-stroke with a 4-2 victory over the visiting Cincinnati Reds on Monday night. The defending World Series champions have won 11 of 14 and led the Los Angeles Dodgers, playing at home later against San Francisco, by 2 1/2 games. A loss by the Dodgers or another Cardinals win would wrap up a playoff spot for St. Louis and a visit to Atlanta for the wild-card game Friday.

Eric Dickerson of Indianapolis and Alonzo Highsmith of Houston - two players who did not join their teams until October - carried their clubs into the playoffs yesterday. The Colts made the playoffs for the first time since 1977, the Oilers for the first time since 1980. Those years marked the last winning seasons for both teams. This is the playoff picture: AFC: Denver, Cleveland, Indianapolis. Seattle and Houston play in the wild- card game. NFC: San Francisco, Washington, Chicago.

TAMPA, Fla. - There is nothing theoretical about playoff expansion for the Phillies. No one understands that, or how precious the opportunities are, better than Roy Halladay. He spent most of a brilliant career playing for a Toronto team that went to spring training every year with little or no chance of reaching the postseason. He came to the Phillies for a chance to change that, to compete on the biggest stage. Two years in a row, he got there. Two years in a row, a supposedly lesser team upset the Phillies and went on to win the World Series.

As another spring training draws near, we offer a bit of warm news in the midst of this mild winter: The Phillies should never stink again. To anyone not yet old enough to legally consume an alcoholic beverage, that might not seem like such a big deal. All you have are memories of a beautiful ballpark overflowing with fans eager to watch a team perpetually in contention. It has been a decade since the Phillies last had a losing season and a dozen years since they finished lower than third in the division.

ANOTHER DAY, another loss, and more frustration for the St. Louis Cardinals. Unlike last year when a tremendous stretch run lifted St. Louis to the NL wild-card berth and, ultimately, the World Series title, the Cardinals are sinking fast. Clayton Richard (13-12) pitched seven strong innings and rookie Yasmani Grandal singled home the go-ahead run as the San Diego Padres handed visiting St. Louis its 11th loss in 15 games, 3-2, on Wednesday. The Cardinals hold a one-game lead over Los Angeles for the second NL wild card.

For Buddy Ryan, it is as clear as the Georgia sky. Probably clearer. And it took less than a half-hour in this Atlanta suburb for him to tell the world. For Buddy Ryan, the Eagles have one challenge against the Los Angeles Rams in their wild-card game Sunday at Veterans Stadium. And for Ryan's team to advance as far as he expects through this year's playoff maze, one group of large men is carrying the burden of meeting that challenge. "I think it will be up to our defensive line to decide how far we go in the playoffs," Ryan said last night, just minutes after his team checked into The Falcon Inn for three days of non-arctic practicing.

The debate over how baseball will expand the playoffs got a little more complicated yesterday, if such a thing were possible. Even while the owners were still battling among themselves over this issue, the players' union threw in its own two billion cents - by announcing that it was opposed to the playoff format the owners hadn't even settled on yet. The owners had been working toward a system in which four first-place teams and four second-place...

Eagles fans turned out in droves to buy tickets for next weekend's wild card playoff game against the Washington Redskins. The Birds clinched the home field advantage with a 23-21 victory over the Phoenix Cardinals Saturday.

As teachers and the school district struggle to resolve their contract dispute, there's a legal wild card in play that resulted from state legislators' anger at former Superintendent David Hornbeck two years ago. When Hornbeck threatened that schools might close without more funding in 1998, lawmakers responded by passing Act 46, a measure granting the state sweeping powers to take over a financially distressed school district such as Philadelphia's....

ONE GAME in and it's hard not to come to this conclusion: The Phillies are really not playing in the National League East this season. They're playing in a loosely defined subdivision that should be called TheRest. If either Washington or Atlanta do not play to their potential this season, that's great. It's happened before and it will happen again, but the idea both won't is a little too hopeful, even for early April. Yes, there is also that possibility all the question marks the Phillies begin the season with will be answered positively.

The Phillies went into the season two years ago with four aces and a sense that something special was about to happen. And they were right. The special wasn't quite as special as they had hoped, and they had no idea that Vance Worley, not Roy Oswalt, would be the fourth ace. Worley didn't even get to pose as one of the five aces when it was inexplicably decided that Joe Blanton should be the ace of something, too. Two years later, the...

LANDOVER, Md. - The right leg of Robert Griffin III buckled into the ground Sunday, unable to pivot with the rest of his body. The star rookie who led the Washington Redskins to their first NFC East title since 1999 already had issues with his knee, but this injury appeared more serious. It forced Griffin to leave the game in the fourth quarter, and the Redskins' hopes disintegrated. The Seattle Seahawks came away with a 24-14 win in the wild-card round of the NFC playoffs. "I'm the quarterback of this team - my job is to be out there if I can play," Griffin said.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard is one of the more fascinating pianists of international stature because he meets the conservative world of dead composers halfway, but with an iconoclastic streak that promises a wild card - or three. At his Philadelphia Chamber Music Society recital Tuesday at the Kimmel Center, Aimard began by reversing the order of his program (the second half came first), and programmed an early work by oboist Heinz Holliger ( Elis ) that was particularly obscure and an encore by Elliott Carter ( FraTribute )

SAN FRANCISCO - Ryan Vogelsong and the San Francisco Giants saved their season once more, pushing St. Louis to a winner-take-all Game 7 in the NL Championship Series. Turns out the defending champion Cardinals aren't the only team that's tough to put away in October. Vogelsong, a former star at Octorara High and Kutztown, struck out a career-best nine batters in another postseason gem, and the Giants avoided elimination for a second straight game by beating St. Louis, 6-1, on Sunday night.

SAN FRANCISCO - Ryan Vogelsong and the Giants saved their season once more, pushing St. Louis to a winner-take-all Game 7 in the NLCS. Turns out the defending champion Cardinals aren't the only team that's tough to put away in October. Vogelsong struck out a career-best nine in another postseason gem, and the Giants avoided elimination for a second straight game by beating St. Louis, 6-1, on Sunday night. Marco Scutaro delivered a two-run double and Buster Posey drove in his first run of the series with a groundout in the first inning as San Francisco struck early to support Vogelsong.

ST. LOUIS - One more win and another bunch of wild-card Cardinals get their chance to repeat. Adam Wainwright threw seven innings of four-hit ball and St. Louis roughed up Tim Lincecum and the San Francisco Giants in an 8-3 rout Thursday night that gave the Cardinals a 3-1 lead in the NLCS. The defending World Series champions can wrap up their second straight pennant as a wild card with a victory at home Friday night in Game 5. Lance Lynn faces Giants lefty Barry Zito, and a Cardinals win would set up a 2006 World Series rematch with Detroit.

By sometime Friday night, either Chipper Jones will be out of baseball or the defending World Series champion Cardinals will be out of the playoffs. One and done. A pair of wild-card matchups - St. Louis at Atlanta, then Baltimore at Texas - to decide which teams advance to the next round. Part of the new, expanded postseason format, where 162 games, six months of grinding, and upward of 50,000 pitches get boiled down to nine all-or-nothing innings. Dramatic? Certainly. Fair?

Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson each hit a pair of homers, powering the New York Yankees past the Boston Red Sox, 14-2, on a raucous Wednesday night in New York, giving the Bombers their 13th AL East title in 17 years. In front of fans poised to party from the first pitch, the Yankees completed a three-game sweep of the last-place Red Sox to win their second consecutive division crown. The championship was locked up by the seventh inning, when Baltimore's 4-1 loss at Tampa Bay was completed.