The MLB All-Star game is a great way to bring back America’s
pastime. It’s a nice break from the first half of the season and reminds fans
that the second and most important half, is looming ahead.
It’s a great way to showcase the sport for millions of
Americans who may be losing faith in this tattered, drug induced, FBI
investigated world that baseball is now trapped in.
The great players chosen to play, the timeless ballparks
that host, and most importantly, the coveted home run derby the night before,
the All-Star game is a wonderful advertising tool that will make fans happy,
while gaining support from people who may not be so sure where their allegiance
is.
It is not so great, however, for the losing side.
For this sport and this sport only, the winner of the
All-Star game gets home field advantage in the World Series. This means that
regardless of how good a team that may make the World Series was during the
regular season, if their League did not win the All-Star game, their
possibility for home field advantage gets stripped and they are awarded with
three games at home, in the middle of the series.
The All-Star game should not dictate who gets home field
advantage in the World Series. For starters, and this is especially true in
baseball, home field advantage is a BIG DEAL. Baseball is the only sport where
the championship format is still 2-3-2. This means that the MOST IMPORTANT
games are the first and last two games.
You can argue that in basketball or hockey their format
gives each team a fair shake at a home advantage, as towards the end of the
series, when each team has already played two games at home, they continue to
switch off until game seven. Yes, game seven is technically the “advantage” in
home field advantage in the two sports, but the fact that it never stops
rotating, especially towards the end of the series takes away much of the
feeling that the home team advantage squad will win.
This is not true in baseball. The 2-3-2 format starts a
theory that, the first and last two games of the series are the most important.
Here is the theory: the first two games are extremely
important because if the home team were to win both or even one game, it gives
them a big advantage. The next three games are away, but if the home field
advantage team steals even one victory out of the three games away, it sets
them up for a must win game six AT HOME and then a championship clinching game
seven AT HOME. Win both of the first two games at home, and you’re in even
better shape to win a title.
Now that my not so successful science explanation is out of
the way, lets move from the traditional baseball statistical way of things and
ask what happens when there is just a straight up better team in the World
Series then the opponent? Is the All-Star game really going to take that away
from a possibly deserving team?
One of the things that make sports so fun to watch is to see
good things happen to good teams. Sure many root for the underdog, but when a
team is good, man is that great to watch. How about a team in each league racing
to the finish to have the best record in baseball, and possibly home field
advantage in the World Series? Now that would give them something to play for
with ten games left in the season. Having the All-Star game deciding a good
teams fate is really monotone and a definite plot killer in the long, tedious
season of baseball.
The All-Star game, just like every other All-Star game in
sports, should be taken lightly. It’s a way to give back to the fans, and
should be a special thanks in baseball to the fans that stick around to watch
the first ninety-something games of the year. An All-Star game that decides
home field advantage for the World Series makes the players playing work. Play
hard. Possibly even get injured.
Bud Selig and MLB should take a page from the NBA and the
NHL (and even the NFL) and use the best record system to determine home field
advantage to our country’s greatest championship game. A creative way (and my
favorite way) that could work is to take the better interleague record of each
team and award them HFA. This makes the regular season more serious and
interleague play a lot more interesting. Or, if they really can’t agree to
terms, just switch every year on which league gets awarded. This may not be the
climax that everyone would hope for, but it would get the job done.
You may be chillin’ tomorrow night, enjoying baseball, but
the players, no matter what happens before, will not be. They will once
again be grinding it out like they do day after day during the season.
