Remembering 1981: If you think 2020 will be an illegitimate season ...

Dodgers third baseman Ron Cey in 1981

The 1981 Cincinnati Reds had the best record in the National League. They had a .611 winning percentage. They did not make the playoffs.

As a matter of fact, the two best teams in the NL did not make the playoffs in 1981. That's how stupid that season was.

I can barely remember that summer. I was only 5 years old. Some people reading this post may not have been born yet, so let me explain.

There was a strike in the middle of the season that lasted two months. Teams stopped playing after the games of June 11, and play did not resume until Aug. 10.

You would think they would have just picked up where they left off, with the standings as they were on June 11, right?

Well, you would be wrong. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn decided that the teams in first place on June 11 would be declared champions of the first half. Each of those four division leaders -- the New York Yankees, the Oakland Athletics, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Los Angeles Dodgers were awarded playoff berths.

Teams reset at 0-0 for the "second half" of the season on Aug. 10, and the teams that won the second half also were awarded playoff berths. Those clubs turned out to be the Milwaukee Brewers, the Kansas City Royals, the Montreal Expos and the Houston Astros.

Here's the problem with that. If you added up the standings for the ENTIRE season, here's how the standings would have looked in the NL East and NL West, respectively:

NL East
1. St. Louis 59-43
2. Montreal 60-48
3. Philadelphia 59-48

NL West
1. Cincinnati 66-42
2. Los Angeles 63-47
3. Houston 61-49

In a strange quirk, both St. Louis and Cincinnati finished second in BOTH the first half and the second half. So, even though those two clubs were the top teams in their divisions for the entire year, neither made the playoffs.

The two Division Series in the National League both featured, in effect, a second-place team against a third-place team. The Dodgers beat the Astros. The Expos beat the Phillies. In the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers beat the Expos, and they went on to beat the Yankees in the World Series.

So, a team that normally wouldn't have made the playoffs under the standard format at the time won the World Series. Hmm.

Over in the American League, the Yankees won the East Division in the first half with a 34-22 record. But in the second half, New York finished SIXTH out of seven teams with a 25-26 record.

Here's how the AL East would have stacked up if you had combined records for the entire season:

1. Milwaukee 62-47
2. Baltimore 59-46
3. Detroit 60-49
4. New York 59-48

But the Yankees got hot in the playoffs. They beat the Brewers in five in the ALDS and swept Oakland in the ALCS to get to the World Series.

So, in effect, you had the fourth-place team in the AL East playing the second-place team in the NL West in the World Series.

The Dodgers won it. Now, ask yourself this: Do you ever hear anyone say there should be an asterisk next to that championship?

No? Me neither.

You see, the machinations of the 1981 season have been forgotten through time. All that matters is that there was a World Series, and somebody won it.

Something to keep in mind as we embark on this strangest of seasons here in 2020, with only 60 games to determine the 10 playoff teams.

Assuming the coronavirus doesn't shut down the season, someone will win a championship under these rules. And decades from now, how it was won will be mostly forgotten, but flags fly forever.