pennant race

Question
Have an ongoing argument going on and would like to resolve
it,
Could you give me the definition of what the pennant race
consists of??
It was my understanding that the all post season games were
a part of the pennant race.


Answer
The definition of "pennant race" does tend to vary from person to person.  The origin of the term goes back to the early days of the world series when there wasn't even a playoff system outside of the world series itself.  In those days, and still today, teams would hoist pennants at their stadiums to show how many league titles they had won.  These days however, with division series, etc.  pennants go up all the time (8 teams get them instead of 2).  So technically, based on the physical pennants, getting in the playoffs constitutes winning a pennant and thus the end of the pennant chase.  However, based on the historical meaning of the term and my personal feelings, winning the pennant means you when your league, so in that case the pennant race would end with the ALCS and NLCS.  I hope this answers your question.