Manager Fredi Gonzalez was the face of frustration when his Atlanta Braves collapsed last year and missed the playoffs on the last day of the season. If this season's rules had applied, he might've been smiling: The Braves and the Boston Red Sox would've made the postseason.
Major League Baseball expanded its playoff format to 10 teams Friday, adding a second wild-card in each league.
The decision establishes a new one-game, wild-card round in each league between the teams with the best records who are not division winners, meaning a third-place team could win the World Series.
This is the only change in baseball's playoff structure since the 1995 season, when wild-card teams were first added.
PARIS, Texas (AP) - A Paris, Texas judge has dissolved a temporary restraining order blocking TransCanada from crossing a farm with a proposed Canadian crude oil pipeline to the Gulf coast.
CLARKSVILLE - A former middle school teacher in Clarksville has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to charges involving sexual misconduct with a 13-year-old male student.
ATHENS - Thousands have rallied on an East Texas courthouse lawn in response to an effort to remove a nativity scene.
The Athens Daily Review estimated that about 5,000 people came to Saturday's rally, which a Baptist pastor told the crowd was prompted by "the beginning of persecution of Christianity in our nation."
FAIRVIEW - An official with a Collin County town where a sewer line accident killed one man says a blockage has been found that could be the body of a missing second worker.
