This Time the Regular Season Counts

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/210008080/new-world-series-home-field-format-vs-history/


In a season in this country that's been dominated by madness, a meager nod to sanity and to just a little bit of all that's sacred on God's green earth. The integrity of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game has finally been restored.

In 2003, the greed of the Fox network colluded with the boobery of Bud Selig's reign as Major League Baseball commissioner to implement the most asinine rule in baseball since the DH (actually more asinine than the DH.) In their vacuous “wisdom,” MLB decided to grant home field advantage in the World Series to the winner of the All-Star Game. “This Time it Counts” was their mantra that tried to capitalize on America's equally vacuous race to the bottom that was (and remains) “reality TV.”

With some adjustments for bracketology, in every major sports playoff scenario, home field advantage in a given series goes to the team with the best regular season record.*

In MLB's twisted and mendacious universe under Selig, a team could blast through the regular season with a record of, say, 120 wins and cruise by a long shot to the game's best record. They might face a wild card team that squeaked into the playoffs with 85 wins and that got hot at the right time to win their league's pennant. But if that league had won that year's All-Star Game (an event conceived and bred as a meaningless exhibition and love fest for both players and fans) they'd enjoy home field advantage against a vastly superior opponent.

MLB's new collective bargaining agreement with the players has killed that idiotic rule and now World Series home field advantage will be awarded to the team with the best regular season record. Imagine that.

I wonder if this year's World Series may have had a hand in this decision. Major League Baseball dodged a serious bullet when the Cubs finally won it all. After 108 long and agonizing years of Cubbie frustration, everyone outside of Cleveland and its diaspora (much smaller than Chicago's) was rooting for the one-time “Lovable Losers” (another grotesque handle that can finally be put to rest.)

The Cubs had the best record in baseball this year, led their division virtually wire-to-wire and had even been the odds-on pre-season favorites to win it all – 108 years be damned. But the American League won the 2016 All-Star Game so Cleveland had home field advantage. It was one of the most thrilling Fall Classics of all time and it did, in fact, go seven games. It was a nailbiter and if the Indians had won at the home park in which they didn't deserve to play a game seven, baseball fans around the world would have been in an uproar.

As it happened, it was a stroke of luck for the Cubs (and MLB) that they got to play that final game in an AL park. It allowed them to have the miracle that is Kyle Schwarber play as the DH (double irony – fuck you, Bud Selig!) His clutch hitting contributed mightily to the Cubs victory that night and all Series long.

And so, in the final World Series marred by Bud Selig's stain on the game, it's fitting that it ended the way it did. The AL unjustly got home field advantage in the last World Series of this mottled era but the Cubs overcame it to end the longest championship drought in major pro sports history.

Finally, major props to the Cleveland Indians and their fans. I really knew nothing about their team this year, but I found out with the rest of the world a helluva lot about them in this mind-bending World Series. What great players, what great coaching and what unbelievable heart. They truly lived up to the cliché and left it ALL on the field. Most impressive of all to me, in post-game interviews after that devastating Game 7 loss, the Indians organization was ALL class from top to bottom.

I know Tribe Nation's collective heart got broken that night. And now it's they who carry the onus of the nation's longest pro championship drought. But their day will come. And when it does (unless they're playing the Cubs again) I'll be rooting for them. And even if they do play and beat the Cubs, my bitter tears of defeat will be tempered by those of joy for a city and a fan base that truly deserve a championship. Hopefully in that scenario, I'll be able to doff my cap to the Indians and all of Tribe Nation with something like the class with which they doffed theirs to us this year. #GoCubsGoTribe

*Except in situations (such as in the NFL) where a division winner gets HFA against a wild card team even if that team had a better regular season record. Not everyone may like that, but at least it makes logical sense. There should be SOME reward for winning one's division.