My mind really gathers wool at 7:00 am but what starts that wool gathering, in season, is usually ATH.
a) I agree with you that the better teams won in all the LDSs this year.
b) NLCS, ALCS - I’m old. I still call them The Pennants. Not just the pennant chase, a term still in use, but the American League Pennant and the National :League Pennant. I have met young people who stare at me blankly when I say the terms that way.
c) I’ve always liked pennants better than flags. Flags are nationalistic, imperialistic, fascistic, square, obvious and in your face. Pennants are sleek and chivalrous. They are tournaments and jousts and shining armor.
d) I am not from Ohio but I live in the state now and have met quite a few folks who are natives and educated in its public schools. Most are very pleased that theirs is the only state that sports a pennant rather than a state flag. It’s doubly odd because, considering its reputation as a state of slow moving practical German farmers, as the birthing room of the rust belt industries and a cradle of rapaciously materialistic businesmen (John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil did all their best work here) and remembering the brutal modern military tactics pioneered by Messrs. Grant and Sherman, Ohio could hardly be considered the home of chivalry in America. (I guess Virginia claims that honor. No wonder they didn’t squawk much when West Virgina split off. They wanted that buffer.)
e) Two separate pennant chases, arriving at a single tournament (pennants flying) was poetic. Playoffs are modern and mathematical. Don’t get me wrong, I like ‘em. More baseball, and with local rooting interests, usually more exciting baseball. But the old way was practically designed to be remembered mythologically. As you have pointed out, all a person has to do is read a little history to find out that there never really was a golden age of baseball, just as you can read a little history and find out that those knights in shining armor weren’t really “knights in shining amor”.
f) Shifting my wool-gathering gears, if the Dodgers meet the Angels at the end of this baseball season, can we call it the first LALA World Series? Or would that be too obvious?
g) God do I miss baseball over the winter!

@Zunitalks -
1) Equity in concept, but in reality I think this would just make the owners much, much wealthier.
2) Instant replay, yes, but relating this to football is unnecessary.  This is MLB, not the NFL, and baseball is so much better.
3) Less baseball?  I’ll take all I can get.
4) Bye-bye interleague!
5) Sayonara, DH!
6) Yes, but how?
7) There are several safety issues writers such as Craig and Will Carroll have mentioned numerous times that should be addressed.
8) Yes, all 7-game playoff series.  But I don’t think Bud has a problem dealing with pressure from the owners.  He was one of them, and has no desire to work in opposition to them.  On the other hand, I don’t think Buck Weaver would agree that a Landis-esque commissioner is the way to go.

@Chris
The wool makes you sound like a cross between Crash Davis and George Carlin.
c) So, pennants are like ground balls, and flags are like strikeouts?
f) Well, we could - if both teams actually played in LA.

(*Jumps down from high horse.*)

Enjoy the rest of the playoffs, everyone!

We’re forgetting the obvious here-

Make all ballparks conform to the exact dimensions of New Yankee Stadium- including wall heights, goofy wind patterns, etc.

Hey, I would post this on the Blue Network but that would result in 11,654,906 responses and election to mayor of NYC, a position my legal residence precludes.

“I tend to think that all four division series resulted in the best team winning anyway”

If the goal of the playoffs was to have the best teams win, we wouldn’t need them - we have the regular season.  Never understood why this got everyone’s (Dodger) panties in a twist.  The entire point of the playoffs is to generate excitement, not to crown the best team.  Think about it this way: what are the main arguments for rotisserie or head-to-head fantasy baseball?

I agree with Zunitalks: baseball desperately needs shattering bat-spears.

The salary cap, or a salary cap w/o other measures, will not do what people want it to do.  More revenue sharing is fine with me.

I’d go the other way on the DH.  Watching pitchers “hit” is annoying, because they’re pathetic and b/c the pinch hitting/substitution routine is formulaic (the standard “it’s strategic!” excuse doesn’t impress me).

More replay, yes, but speed of the replay & decision-making needs to be addressed.

Shorter season?  Nah.

Get rid of the DH?  Get rid of pitchers flailing weakly at pitches is more like it.  There’s nothing more annoying than pulling a pitcher at 87 pitches just because it’s his turn to strike out. 

Interleague is fun, I’d prefer a set-up that rotates divisions instead of this “natural rivalry” crap that just screws up who is playing whom during any given season.  It would also eliminate the annual complaints that we Red Sox fans have to endure from Braves fans that hate 4 hour baseball games (wink, Senor Calcaterra). 
Of course to implement my idea you’d need to re-structure the divisions to pull one of the 6 NL central teams to the 4 team AL West.  (I still cannot believe that’s how the leagues are set-up.)

Craig:

What did you think of Tracy allowing Huston Street to face Ryan Howard in that situation with lefty Beimel rotting in his bullpen?  I like the Phils and I still think it was the stupidest decision of the year.

“Of course to implement my idea you’d need to re-structure the divisions to pull one of the 6 NL central teams to the 4 team AL West.  (I still cannot believe that’s how the leagues are set-up.) “

That would require at least one inter-league series every day.  Bud needs to keep them on premium weekends to maintain the fiction that it boosts attendance (beyond the fact that teams like the Yanks, Sox, Cubs and Dodgers boost attendance wherever they go).

“instant replay of umpire calls like in football” and “speed up the games”- Probably mutually exclusive.
Re instant replay: I don’t ever want to go there; however, for some reason, I don’t ever remember umpiring being as bad as it’s been this year.  I’m not referring to the strike zone where one might give the low strike and not the high one or go a hair off the black (the Greg Maddux call). As long as the zone was consistent, there wasn’t a lot of complaining. This year, some of them have created a game within the game: Guess where the strike zone is on this pitch.
All of you know how bad some of the calls at the bags have been.
Are they really that much worse? Is this perception or fact? Or is it just the same few umpires who just suck and just happen to be officiating the games I watch?

“eliminate interleague play with its inherent inequities” Amen to that!

“I’ve always liked pennants better than flags. Flags are nationalistic, imperialistic, fascistic, square, obvious and in your face. Pennants are sleek and chivalrous. They are tournaments and jousts and shining armor.”
Agree completely. On holidays, I fly the Vulcan flag at my house.  (My brother-in-law suggested the Venusian flag but I told him everyone has one of those.)