What was perpetrated in St. Petersburg, Fla. earlier this week marked the wild card's official ruination of the backbone that helped shape baseball's historical charm.

Translation: The pennant race is dead.

The Rays/Yankees series could have been epic. Three one-run games between the teams with the best records in baseball a half-game apart with, what, 20 games left? And only one makes the playoffs? It's only everything we'd want from sports.

Instead, we got a scoreless tie in the ninth on Monday, Sabathia and Price having pitched brilliantly, when Joe Girardi trots out immortals Chad Gaudin and Sergio Mitre, bypassing the upper tier of the bullpen.

Why? Because he really didn't need the game.

Even though the game was tied, the teams were tied and there are two weeks left.

This is acceptable?

I'm not faulting Girardi, who has made the decision that his team's overall health heading to the playoffs supersedes the immediacy of winning the division. Especially when the wild card essentially serves the same purpose.

I'm faulting baseball, which is depriving its fans — and itself — of the appeal on which it grew a foundation.

I'm faulting baseball, for which the term "pennant race" is nominal. The wild card has sapped all the drama of the regular season between the best teams, preferring to provide the competition for the proletariat. There's more competition for who finishes second than first.

It's like choosing to bypass tickets for Broadway on Saturday night in favor of the Garde on Tuesday afternoon.

Question: Would baseball have the same cachet had the wild card existed throughout history?

You decide:

• Author David Halberstam would never have written "The Summer of '49," a novel about how the American League race came down to the final weekend in 1949. The Red Sox led the Yankees by a game on the final weekend and played each other in the Bronx. The Yankees won both games and won the pennant by a game. It was good enough and dramatic enough for a best-selling book. But it would never happen today. Because both would have made the playoffs.

• Bobby Thomson would never have become part of American sports lore and legend. There would have been no need to play the three-game playoff series in 1951 because the Dodgers and Giants would have both made the playoffs. At best, Giants announcer Russ Hodges would have yelled "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" and Red Barber in the other booth would have countered, "and we make the playoffs, too!"

• Some of the greatest collapses in baseball history — and subsequent talking points — would be postscripts. Example No. 1: The 1964 Phillies were up by 6 1/2 games with 12 to go, lost 10 straight and eventually lost to the Cardinals. Today, Gene Mauch would have rested his veterans and still made the playoffs as a wild card.

Example No. 2: There would be no Bucky Bleeping Dent because Oct. 2, 1978 would have been some sleepy Monday afternoon at empty Fenway Park.

Next question: Is it even fathomable the number of baseball fans the aforementioned examples created, captivated, and cemented forever?

And now in 2010, some kid named Greg Golson makes this laser beam throw to second base to nail Carl Crawford going to third base for the final out, a play that for all we know could have become mythic. And instead becomes a quickly forgotten SportsCenter highlight.

We'll be reminded that because the wild card has produced an occasional World Series champion, it is somehow justified. But has the "drama" the wild card has provided outdone the timeless theater of the pennant race?

We'll be reminded, too, how the wild card keeps more franchises - the poor, the downtrodden - interested in the game well in to September. Glad to hear it. Now explain why it took the first-place Padres until Friday of last week to draw even 30,000, despite playing their biggest homestand of the season against the Dodgers and Giants. They drew 23,574, 20,071, 20,851, 28,456.

Or the Rays this week against the Yanks? Try 26,907, 28,713 and 29,733.

But by all means, let's cater to all the teams in cities that clearly don't care.

Bottom line: You have 162 games to prove worthy in baseball. If, after 162 games, you finish second, you should stay home. Goes for everyone, including the Yankees. But in our societal obsession to give everyone a trophy, we have no such thing as a pennant race anymore in baseball. Sad. Maybe someone should alert Bud Selig of this as he counts his $18 million salary.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.