The wild card was established for Major League Baseball's playoffs in 1994 with the intention of helping the best teams that did not win their division to still have a chance to win the World Series.
[1] The restructuring of both the American League and National League from two to three divisions each made it necessary to either give one team a bye in the first round of playoffs, or create the wild card for the best second-place team.
[2] The two wild card teams in each league face each other in a one-game playoff, the Wild Card Game, with the winner advancing to meet the number one seed in the Division Series.
The lowest-seeded wild card team (#6 seed) would then face the lowest-seeded division winner (#3 seed) in the best-of-three Wild Card round, with the remaining two Wild Card teams (#4 and #5 seed) squaring off in the other bracket.
The Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees have been a wild card qualifier a record eight times each.