Editing Playoffs (section)

====Major League Baseball====
{{Main|Major League Baseball postseason}}
[[Major League Baseball]] (MLB) itself does not use the term "playoffs" for championship tournaments. Instead, it uses the term "postseason" as the title of the elimination tournament held after the conclusion of the [[Major League Baseball schedule|regular season]]. From {{MLBy|2012}} to {{MLBy|2019}} and  {{mlby|2021|disp=seas}}, it consisted of a first round single-elimination [[Wild Card Game]] between the two [[Wild card (sports)|wild-card teams]] in each league. From {{MLBy|2022}}, the postseason begins with a two best-of-three Wild Card Series first round, followed by a best-of-five second round series called the [[Division Series]], and two rounds of best-of-seven series for the [[League Championship Series]] and [[World Series]]. One exception is {{MLBy|2020}}, when the first-round series, the Wild Card Series, a best-of-three round, was created, along with the other rounds. The first three seeds went to division champions, the next three seeds to division runners-up, and the last two to the next-best records. The pairings for the Wild Card Series are as follows: top seed vs. eighth, second vs. seventh, third vs. sixth, and fourth vs. fifth. The division series has the 1–8 winner play the 4–5 winner, while the 2–7 winner plays the 3–6 winner.

MLB uses a "2–3–2" format for the final two rounds of its postseason tournament. The singular term "playoff" is reserved for the rare situation in which two (or more) teams find themselves tied at the end of the regular season and are forced to have a tiebreaking playoff game (or games) to determine which team will advance to the postseason. Thus, a "playoff" is actually ''part of the regular season'' and can be called a "[[pennant playoff]]". However, the plural term "playoffs" is conventionally used by fans and media to refer to baseball's postseason tournament, not including the World Series.

MLB is the oldest of the major American professional sports, dating back to the 1870s. As such, it is steeped in tradition. The final series to determine its champion has been called the "World Series" (originally "World's Championship Series" and then "World's Series") as far back as the National League's contests with the [[American Association (19th century)|American Association]] during the 1880s.