“Realignment, the wild cards, revenue sharing and widespread use of ‘Moneyball’ techniques haven’t leveled the playing field, but they’ve narrowed the gap considerably.”

Twenty-six of the 30 teams — all but Kansas City, Miami, Seattle and Toronto — have reached the playoffs in the last eight seasons. The smallest market in the majors, Milwaukee, has averaged more than 31,000 fans a game in each of the last seven seasons. Half the teams in the majors drew at least 2.5 million this season, and most now play in modern, charming downtown ballparks.

Franchise values are exploding. Last year, a group led by Mark Walter, Magic Johnson and Stan Kasten bought the Los Angeles Dodgers for $2.15 billion. Then they reached a local TV deal that could be worth $8 billion over 25 years.

“We made a gamble when we bought the team and paid what we paid for it, and everyone said we paid too much,” Kasten, the team president, said before Game 1 of the Dodgers’ division series here Thursday. “We paid that much because we thought it was worth more. And it turns out, gee, it really was, on the basis of the support we were going to get from our fans, from tickets, Cokes and hot dogs, from strategic partners wanting to align with us, from sponsors and, yes, from media partners.

“We thought all of that would be there if we got our job done first, and that’s what we tried to do. And so the result is we’ve had a lot of success in sponsorships, we’ve had a lot of success in TV deals and we’ve had extraordinary success in attendance. What makes me as proud as anything is that we also led baseball in road attendance, because that means the Dodger brand that we’re trying to restore is taking hold and becoming appealing and an attraction for all of baseball in every city.”

Most of the Dodgers’ appeal comes from their current players — the game’s best pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, the electrifying rookie outfielder Yasiel Puig, and so on. But if some portion also comes from the team’s tradition, with Vin Scully telling the story as nimbly as ever at 85, all the better.

Baseball’s history adds texture to its story lines, especially in October. Clint Hurdle, the Pirates’ manager, guided Colorado to its first World Series in 2007 and coached for Texas in its first World Series in 2010. The rise of the Pirates is different, he said. It takes on more meaning because the team is restoring a legacy.