Home Field Advantage

Ok, its about that time again. Lets talk about the home field advantage controversy in Major League Baseball. First off there is the All Star game issue. Ok, so the winning league of the All Star Game gets Home Field Advantage in the World Series. I won't get into this. Like it, don't like it whatever. I don't care. The thing is that most people hate it. They think it isn't fair. They think it should be whichever team has the best record. And this seems quite obvious to all. Well all except for anyone who isn't stupid. Like oh uh me for instance.

Ok, heres the deal. Nothing is fair in sports. No one gets this. There is no way to be fair, especially based on records. The main point is this. You can only be somewhat fair. There is no way to be completely fair. So the only way to be fair is to be completely unfair.

An example......The Dodgers and the Padres play in the same division. The play each of the other three teams in the division 19 times each. Thats somewhat fair. Then the play all of the other teams in the other divisions the same amount of times. Thats somewhat fair. Then they play some of the same interleague teams. But then the Dodgers play 6 games against their "AL Rivals" the Angels, while the Padres play their "AL Rivals" the Mariners 6 times. Clearly not fair this year. Lastly they play each other 19 times. Also not fair. The Padres won the division and the Dodgers finished 4th. That means the Padres got 19 extra games against a 4th place team, while the Dodgers played 19 games against the 1st place team. Also not fair.

The NL and AL teams in the World Series haven't played hardly any of the same teams. The Cardinals have a better record than the White Sox. But if the White Sox played in the NL, they might have won 150 games. Probably not, but maybe. We surely don't know.

Furthermore, even if two teams did play the exact same schedule its still not fair, because they don't play those teams on the same day. The Astros were awful in the first half of the season and smokin hot in the second half. The Cubs played the majority of the 19 games vs the Astros in the first half when the Astros were bad, the Cardinals played most of their games against them in the second half. Again, not fair to the Cardinals.

Now understand, I actually don't think any of this is particularly unfair. But if you are looking for "fairness" then you can't be half assed about it. There is only one solution. And that is to be totally unfair.

Until just a few years ago, the World Series was determined simply by alternating every single year. NL then AL. You see, that is fair. Its simple and its the same for all. You know what to expect, and there is nothing to argue. See....Fair.


-T