THE MILD CARD RACE

IF BASEBALL STAGED AN EXCITING pennant race and nobody came, would it still make a noise? That philosophical question is being posed as the regular season dwindles toward its conclusion next Sunday. Thanks to the introduction of the sacrilege known as the wild card--the best second-place team in each league will join the three division winners in the postseason--clubs that would ordinarily be playing out the string are still scrambling for that last coveted, though maligned, seat. "We'll take it any way we can get it," says New York Yankee first baseman Don Mattingly, who can taste his first October in 13 seasons. "Purists may not like the idea of the wild card, but I've learned to love it."

The game is still reeling from the strike that canceled last year's World Series, but it somehow lucked into a fascinating cast for postseason play. The American League will have the Boston Red Sox, who haven't won a world championship since 1918; the joke turned juggernaut Cleveland Indians; the Seattle Mariners and/or the California Angels, both of whom are strangers to the World Series; and perhaps the Yankees. The National League will have the pleasure of the company of pitcher Greg Maddux and the Atlanta Braves; the return of Cincinnati's Big Red Machine; and a choice of two of these three: the three-year-old Colorado Rockies, the Los Angeles Dodgers (Nomo, no less) and the Houston Astros. Had Major League Baseball retained the old two-division setup in each league, with no wild card, the Red Sox would not be in the postseason, and the mediocre Philadelphia Phillies would be.

The problem is that few people seem to care. When the Astros, only a game behind in the wild-card race, beat the Chicago Cubs on Sept. 18, there were 10,848 lonely souls in the Astrodome. When the Kansas City Royals, who were still in contention for the A.L.'s fourth spot, fell to the Minnesota Twins in the 12th inning on Sept. 20, fewer than 1,000 fans remained in Royals Stadium. Most distressing for baseball, though, was the pathetic support given the Yankees as they swept a four-game series from the still world-champion Toronto Blue Jays last week: 69,303 in aggregate attendance, or an average of 17,326 a game. Granted, owner George Steinbrenner does everything he can to knock the Bronx and nothing to promote the Bombers, but the weather was glorious, the situation enticing and the scalpers so generous that they were selling tickets for less than face value. Baseball is clearly in trouble when the most famous team in the world in one of the biggest cities in the world draws 17,000 for a big game.