"It is all immensely complicated, but essentially it means that practically every team in baseball except the Chicago Cubs gets a chance to go to the World Series.
The Chicago Cubs don't get to go because they never manage to qualify even under a system as magnificently accomodating as this. Often they almost qualify, and sometimes they are in such a commanding position that you cannot believe they won't qualify, but always in the end they doggedly manage to come up short. Whatever it takes-losing seventeen games in a row, letting easy balls go through their legs, crashing comically into each other in the outfield-you can be certain the Cubs will manage it.
They have been doing this, reliably and efficiently, for over half a century. They haven't been in a World Series since 1945. Stalin has had good years more recently than that. This heartwarming annual failure by the Cubs is almost the only thing in baseball that hasn't changed in my lifetime, and I appreciate that very much."
-I'm A Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away
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