NASCAR’s championship finish mirrors Major League Baseball playoffs

This must be the year of unbelievable comebacks.

Tony Stewart won the Chase after going winless in NASCAR’s regular season and barely slipped into the final Chase spot based on points before going crazy and winning one of the most exciting championship races ever.

However, Stewart wasn't the only comback champion this fall. He followed the template set by the St. Louis Cardinals when they won the other fall championship on the sports calendar.

The similarities in how the two seasons finished are remarkable. The Cardinals were more than 10 games out of a playoff spot with a month to play, and Stewart said his team didn’t even deserve a spot in the Chase a month before Chase started.

Stewart sat 10th in the points standings just 14 points ahead of 11th when he made that statement after the race in August at Michigan. In fact, Stewart said that Aug. 27, the same day the Cardinals began their climb back into contention.

Both Stewart and the Cardinals squeaked into the playoffs and had to wait until the final day of their respective regular seasons to find out if they would make the playoffs.

They both did and then went on a tear unlike any other their sports had seen from teams so far out of contention with a month to play.

Stewart won five Chase races and the Cardinals beat the teams with the two best records in the National League: the Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Brewers.
The comparisons don’t stop there, however. Stewart and the Cardinals both made the championship game, but neither were content to make those contests any less than thrilling.

Stewart entered the final Sprint Cup Series race of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway trailing points leader Carl Edwards by three points. The only way Stewart could guarantee himself the championship was if he won the race.

He did win the race, but he had to battle back from adversity throughout the event, and for much of the race it looked like Edwards had the championship in hand as he dominated the first half of the race.

Instead, Stewart took the lead late and Edwards finished second, resulting in a tie for the points lead. Stewart won the championship because he had more wins than Edwards, and Stewart would have lost the championship even if he finished second. There was no margin for error.

The Cardinals also had no margin for error as they entered Game 6 of the World Series facing elimination by the Texas Rangers. The Rangers had the Cardinals down to their final strike twice, but the Cardinals came back both times to win the game on a walk-off homerun by David Freese and win the series the following night.

In both cases, the contest came absolutely down to the wire. It isn’t possible to have a NASCAR points race closer than the tie between Stewart and Edwards, and a baseball team can’t be any closer to being eliminated than the one remaining strike the Cardinals had left.

One would think maybe these types of finishes happen fairly regularly, but NASCAR hadn’t had a championship finish where the top two drivers were separated by less than 10 points since 2004, although the points system changed for this season. Major League Baseball hadn’t had a World Series go to Game 7 since 2002 when the Anaheim Angels beat the San Francisco Giants.

On top of everything else, both championship head coaches won’t return the following year. Cardinals manager Tony La Russa already announced his retirement three days after the World Series ended, and Stewart’s crew chief Darian Grubb confirmed he won’t be atop the #14 team’s pit box in 2012.

This was just one of those amazing years where the championship moment is as thrilling as possible, but it is incredible that those moments in both sports happened in the same year.

Maybe that means we’re in line for a terrific Super Bowl this season, as well.

Edwards and Beltran hold keys to moves in NASCAR and MLB

The Major League Baseball trading deadline is less than a week away, and there is plenty of speculation about who will be moved, and similar statements could be said about NASCAR.

NASCAR doesn’t have a deadline and drivers aren't traded, but speculation about who they will drive for next year is just as rampant.

Carl Edwards is the NASCAR version of Carlos Beltran this year. Everybody wants to know where he will drive in 2012, just as they want to know which team Beltran will try and help make a push for the playoffs.

Both men came to this point in a similar fashion. During the mid-2000s, Beltran was the best postseason hitter in baseball bar none. That postseason with the Houston Astros in 2004 was simply incredible. However, after he tied the big league record of eight homeruns in the playoffs that year, Beltran has seen his production decline.

Beltran hit just 17 homers combined in the past two seasons with a career-worst .255 batting average last year. But, this season his average is back up to .291, he has 15 homeruns and several teams want him to join them for the stretch run.

Edwards has had a similar career path. At times he has looked like the best driver on the track every week, and other times he has fallen back into mediocrity will long winless stretches.

He had 12 wins combined in 2007 and 2008 while finishing in the top 10 in points both years. Then he hit rock bottom during a 70-race winless streak before winning last fall at Phoenix.

Now Edwards is back on top of the standings and is the most sought-after driver available for teams to lure for 2012.

Joe Gibbs Racing has made quite an effort to bring Edwards aboard, and it might work. Edwards has kept his mouth shut so far, but it might not be too long before the actual race during a weekend becomes a secondary story if Edwards does choose to move from his current #99 ride with Roush-Fenway Racing.

In both cases, the rest of the puzzle pieces will fall into place once these two athletes make a decision to either stay with their current team (Beltran has a no-trade clause) or take their talents somewhere else.

Particularly for the NASCAR world, Edwards’ decision will have far-reaching consequences. Joe Gibbs Racing could suddenly have maybe the best team in the sport, and Roush-Fenway Racing will have to shuffle people around to make things fit for 2012, not to mention try and find sponsors to fill the hoods of both Matt Kenseth’s #17 car and the #99 car, perhaps driven by Trevor Bayne or Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Until Edwards and Beltran make their decisions, tension will continue to build throughout both sports.