Alberta Baseball Confederacy: Week 24, Playoff Edition

Here's the belated thread for the Alberta Baseball Confederacy's final standings, and the beginning of the first week of playoffs, in which the second and third-place finishers within each division face-off to determine who meets the divisional leaders in the Division Championship next week.

The final week of the regular season was, as our commissioner would say, a gong-show:

• In each division the fourth-place team entering the final week overtook the third-place team and won the playoff spot. Even more remarkable: neither winner owned undisputed hold of a playoff-eligible position during the regular season until the final week. Talk about peaking at the right time.


• The biggest gap was closed by the NLFC: as recently as seven weeks ago, they trailed On Top by 18 games in the standings.


• At the top of the standings there was a similarly unexpected reversal. The Miners posted their fifth-straight perfect week to finish the season 60-31-1. Meanwhile the Doctrine stumbled at the finish, dropping all four games to close-out the year 60-32. Having led the league for seven weeks, and recorded a record 32 games above .500 at their peak, most expected the Doctrine to finish first overall. Now, for the want of half-a-game, they'll have to let the playoffs demonstrate their supremacy.


• And at the other end of the spectrum, the hapless St Pats secured the first overall draft pick for 2007, stealing below the Helmet in the final week by a single game. The Helmet had held bottom place in the league for the past month but were their own worst enemy, recording just their fourth winning-week of the year in the season's final week to move ahead of the St Pats.

Three days into the playoffs and the Italiani and NLFC are continuing their improbable rise from the ashes: each leads their match-up by a wide margin. The Rooters' chances may have been crippled by the loss of Francisco Liriano, and by management's decision to bench Harden and Garcia in this week's matchup. Who'll come out 'on top'? As Week 23 demonstrated, anything can happen.