Should Home-Field Advantage Be Decided by 12-Sided Dice?
A lot of peculiar things happened while we were caught up watching the World Series. Apparently, George Bush stopped staying the course in Iraq, and, it seems, Barak Obama was elected president. But more importantly, Major League Baseball signed a labor agreement with the Players Association, setting out some new ground rules for the next few years of the National Pastime: The Yankees are now allowed to spend more money than ever before since the luxury tax threshold was raised; the lowest-paid players will now get a little extra cash; there will be no more free agency deadlines; and, you may have missed this, the winner of the All-Star game will now officially, permanently determine World Series home-field advantage.
This system was instituted on a trial basis in 2003 to spice up the All-Star break. It gives the American League champion home-field advantage in the World Series when the AL wins the All-Star game. It would theoretically do the same for the National League champion except that the NL hasn’t won the All-Star game in ten years. This got us thinking: Why don’t we just award home-field advantage to the team from the league that comes first alphabetically?
There are many, many arguments against the newly cemented arrangement: Baseball is a team game; the All-Star game is not. There were only two Tigers on this year’s winning AL squad. The platooning of pitchers makes the All-Star game into the opposite of baseball, &c. &c. We could go on and on. Instead, we’ve decided to propose some alternative, spicy, arbitrary ways to select home field advantage in the World Series. We’re going to send our suggestions to Bud Selig, but we need some more ideas. Drop them in the comment box.
Here are some samples:
As part of your new drug-free policy, Mr. Selig, you could award the advantage to the team with the smallest, average helmet size.
To appease the union, you give could home field to the team with the highest payroll.
If it’s the owners you’re trying to please, give it to the team who spent the most tax dollars on the stadium in question. This would spice up debates over stadium construction.
To promote the game among nativist types, you could award “home” field to the team with the most American-born players.
Three words: D&D. Selig is dungeon master.
To “juice” up the game, give it to the team with the most homers. You’d get more hitters’ parks and more female fans. Chicks after all love the long ball. (Besides. the AL always wins it anyway.)
Ah, just give it to the Yankees!
William of Chico (Phillies fan at large) sent us these excellent suggestions:
1) Alphabetical according to city or team name.
— Austin Nov 2, 02:48 PM #2) Previous year’s winning league gets homefield.
3) Team with best winning percentage
4) Team with best inter (intra?)-league record
5) Team with best overall season attendance gets homefield
6) The team which sold the most beer over the season gets homefield
7) The team whose skipper would be the first to call Charlie Manuel a “Hayseed” would get homefield
8) The National League should be granted homefield in perpetuity just in case the Fightin’s ever make it back
9) Screw the World Series and its homefield advantage—it’s football season.