What is the Wild Card in baseball?

Answer 1

In playing card terms, a wild card is a card that can be assigned any value its holder desires. A wild card can be a pre-assigned card, such as any 2 (deuce) or the jack of spades, for example, or a special card, usually one of the jokers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In North American professional sports leagues, the term "wild card" refers to a team that qualifies for that sporting league's (association, etc.) playoffs that is one of several high-achieving teams that did not obtain the best win-loss record in their specific subdivision (usually called a conference or division) of that sport's league. The number of wild card teams varies depending on the rules of the particular sport's league. In most cases, the rules of the league call for the wild card team to be intentionally placed at an inherent disadvantage before the start of the playoff tournament, either by having to survive an extra round and/or being made to play the majority of their potential postseason games on the road.

Answer 2

The three division winners in each league earn spots in the playoffs. The fourth spot in each league is given to the non-divisonal-winning team with the best record in each league.