Deciding Where Home (Field) Will Be

For a variety of reasons, some of which will be touched on below, in 2003 Major League Baseball decided to assign home field in the World Series -- Games 1, 2, 6*, and 7* (* if necessary) -- to the team whose league won that season's All-Star Game. Prior to this, MLB had simply switched leagues each year (2002 had been an AL year, 2001 an NL year, etc...) for decades, which worked just fine. This newer method is, I think, no better or worse than the predecessor, but it riles up a lot of fans and, as fans, they then make a lot of noise about it.

Someone on a message forum I frequent asked me if I liked this method, or would prefer a different approach, suggesting that better season W-L record between the two league champions should be the method of choice. I replied, and it ended up a lot longer than I thought, enough so that it would make a good blog post. So here it is, with a cold start talking briefly about the National Football League and how it does not use home fields for its climactic game, the Super Bowl (not even once by sheer luck).

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The NFL puts the Super Bowl at a neutral site which is always either warm-weather or cold-weather but indoors -- because while real football fans (of which, I am not one) will put up with sitting through a blizzard (shirt off, beer held high, team colors painted on), the corporate sponsors who show up for this one game only want none of that. The SB isn't for the fans anyway, and the NFL knows it.

I do not give a damn about how World Series homefield is decided. Simply alternating leagues each season worked fine for decades. The worst thing Selig did was not implementing the "ASG decides" method -- it was merely raising homefield as an issue, which it was NOT. The problem is artificial, so the solution is meaningless. (But it did get fans' attention, so that keeps it in the spotlight, which is a positive -- free hype.)

Neutral site is simply an awful idea for baseball. (The SB benefits from being one day, one game, and having a full week or two before with zero games -- allows great flexibility, and with all the events the NFL stuffs in that window, there is a need to KNOW the location beforehand.)

I don't like "best record" because, even with the interleague virus thriving 12 seasons on, the leagues are MOSTLY hermetic -- and the unbalanced schedule (neither good nor bad, simply there) means that a division with more than one really good (or really bad) team can beat itself up and have an 85-win champion, whereas one good team in a weak division can pummel its way to 100 wins. Put these in opposite leagues, sift their way through the first two rounds, and what teams show up for the World Series tells us, well, nothing. I don't like the term, but "strength of schedule" is ignored -- or worse, if incorporated, makes the homefield assignment method that much more needlessly complex. It works, one supposes, in the NHL and NBA because those teams intermix conferences heavily during the season, and the interminable playoff tournament ensures that no quick-lucky playoff team makes it to the finals (and as noted, homefield is a non-issue in the NFL for the last game). (As an aside, in general I don't care what the lesser sports do, and dislike citing them as obvious alternative solutions. Baseball should answer its own questions in whatever manner works best for its own house. The pro leagues operate similarly in big ways but the differences become important down in the details.)

Ah! But the AL and NL DO interact during the season, for a longer and truer test than just the ASG. We have interleague play, Selig loves it (its his baby), why not use it? Back in 2003, when the "ASG decides" proposal was first floated, some sportswriter (and I dearly wish I could remember whom, he deserves credit) suggested a three-point system, where two points decides WS homefield:

The leagues would earn one point for:
1. winning the All-Star Game;
2. winning the season interleague series (full leagues, not just the two champion teams);
3. best record between the two league champions.

I like this. It keeps Seligula's idea in play, which is not a bad thing, just clunky (like so many of his initiatives) and overrated. It adds "meaning" to the season's interleague competition (and gives a much clearer concept of which league really IS stronger) -- since we are stuck with it, let's have interleague do a bit more heavy lifting. And it puts the "best record" thing in there to mollify (however briefly) the hotheads who think that is the One True Method (which it is not, for baseball, but worth adding just for the measure of peace and quiet it would bring). (#3 is actually a bit twiggy, if an LCS goes seven and the playing teams bracket the other league champion, that leaves mere days lead time. Perhaps cumulative record of the four playoff teams per league, which then resolves the question in late September, end of the season at latest.)

I like this -- or at least find it inoffensive. It has something for most fans, it adds a bit of drama (could be decided by July, might not be decided until October), also adds a bit of fun, is a tiny bit more complex while staying far removed from being complicated (win two points of three -- could hardly be simpler). People will hate it, but it has something to hate for everyone, so it would be accepted, grudgingly, as tolerable.

Three-point system. If we have to impose some sort of Grand Solution upon World Series homefielding, let's do this.

Remember, WS homefield was NEVER AN ISSUE before Selig made it one. It was quite typical for him: see a problem (players not taking the ASG "seriously", managers not prioritizing winning first), define it poorly, and then apply a completely wrong solution. The players don't much like this "ASG decides" factor.

Realize why the players stopped taking the ASG seriously. The AL and NL once were distinct and had league identities. That is now all but gone, largely by Selig's hand. Umpires unified, league presidencies abolished, interleague play. Add to this how much MLB uses the ASG for marketing (most crass example: Nomo starting in 1995 as Maddux was suddenly "injured". Purely on merit Maddux deserved the start, but Nomo was the hot item on the world scene). Without league identity, league pride, the players are out there for show and only their individual competitive spirit to inspire them. And often, it showed -- consider Walker batting righty against Johnson. MLB reduced the ASG to a pony show -- marketing over a quality competition -- and some of the players caught on and treated it in kind. Selig was getting desperate, so after that 2002 muck-up, he went with this "ASG decides" theme as a way of getting the ASG back in the saddle. It was clumsy, it was ham-handed, no one likes it -- classic Selig, isn't it?

We're stuck with it, and I really don't care about it. Don't love it, don't hate it -- it simply IS NOT THAT DAMN IMPORTANT.

But I would enjoy the three-point system, mainly because (a) it'd be fun, (b) unify fans and media -- they'll all find fault with it but recognize that, okay, THEIR idea got wedged into the mix so at least SOMETHING was done partially right, and (c) attach some value to ALL interleague games, not just the headliner series in Chicago and Noo Yawk. (I could easily live without interleague, but it's here to stay so let's put it to work.)

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Just thinking a bit further -- I do like the third point being cumulative record among the four league playoff teams rather than just the champion team, perhaps with interleague games subtracted (which could be bothersome as not all teams play the same number of IL games). And it would cause a hue and cry if one team, some season, played one less game due to rainout and never replayed it, and that one missing game made the difference in determining the point. See, here's the slippery slope -- try to add just a little complexity to make the entire concept more "fair", and all sorts of factors pop up that were not obvious at first. sigh. Assigning World Series homefield should not be as tangled a mess as, say, playoff tiebreakers. There's just no pleasing some people.