Atlanta Braves, Mlb Playoffs | featured news

The first wild-card playoff game in baseball history turned out to be just plain wild Friday, thanks to a complicated rule that has long been part of baseball, even if many people - even hard-core fans - don't know exactly what it is. The disputed call led to a protest by the Braves - which was quickly denied - and an ugly display as fans littered the field with debris, causing a 19-minute delay.

Chris Carpenter and the St. Louis Cardinals completed one of baseball's greatest comebacks, clinching the NL wild card Wednesday night with an 8-0 win over Houston and a later loss by Atlanta. The Cardinals got their playoff spot when the Braves fell to Philadelphia 4-3 in 13 innings.

Never in the long history of Major League Baseball has any team held a lead in September of eight games or more for a postseason berth and failed to clinch... And yet it could happen twice in 2011, because the Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves are teetering on the verge of collapsing in the season's final month the way no club has before.

The San Francisco Giants celebrated their first playoff win in eight years, then paused to honor the man whose career they had just ended.

Rick Ankiel's Giant-beating blast saves the Braves from an 0-2 hole.

The sellout crowd that had been waiting seven years for another playoff game roared when Tim Lincecum jogged back out to the mound to start the ninth inning. The way the Freak dominated in his postseason debut, there was no way manager Bruce Bochy would take the ball away.