All-star game should not decide home-field advantage

“This Time It Counts.”

These words made up the slogan that was in big print in an ad… “This Time It Counts.”

These words made up the slogan that was in big print in an ad promoting the All-Star game. I ran across the ad while reading the sports section of the Baltimore Sun the morning of the All-Star Game.

“It’s a pretty bad slogan, and I think it’s a horrible idea,” Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra said at an All-Star Game press conference. “When I was a little kid playing in the street, I thought it counted then. They all count”

Major League Baseball tried to hype a new procedure that did not seem to be all that popular, especially with the players. Since the American League won the All-Star Game in 2003, it has home-field advantage in the World Series.

Texas Rangers’ third baseman Hank Blalock hit a pinch-hit, two-out, two-run home run off Los Angeles Dodgers closer Eric Gagne in the bottom of the eighth inning to complete the American League’s comeback victory.

With the World Series right around the corner the question is: is this a good thing or a bad thing?

It depends on how you look at things. There was supposedly something at stake. Or was there? Well, having games one, two, six and seven played at the home of the victor is what the All-Star Game has come down to.

But everybody who is on the All-Star team does not have home-field advantage at stake. Look at Detroit Tigers outfielder Dmitri Young; the Tigers were out of playoff contention in April.

I guess the game would be more entertaining if the players took the game seriously because there is something at stake, but truthfully, this is not the case for everybody.

So I guess players like Garciaparra, Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi had something at stake and were willing to play hard as their teams, the Boston Red Sox, Atlanta Braves and New York Yankees, respectively, clearly had what it took to make a run at their divisions at the All-Star break.

Maybe this is what Major League Baseball was thinking when it decided to change the format this season. Bud Selig and company were scrambling around for anything to make up for last year’s disaster, which ended in a tie, and to make sure that it never occurs again.

Well Bud, I’m not sure that this is the answer, and many of the players agree.

“They could have not done a thing, and last year would never happen again,” Braves closer John Smoltz said at an All-Star Game press conference. “I’m not here to badmouth Major League Baseball, but you can’t make radical changes because one All-Star game ended in a tie. That was just a fluke.”

Suppose that one league dominates the other league, as was the case with the National Football League’s Super Bowls. Until the Denver Broncos won Super Bowl XXXII in 1998, the National Football Conference won 13 straight Super Bowls over the American Football Conference dating back to 1984.

So should one league get to host the majority of the home games in the World Series for several years straight? No. Anybody who follows sports knows that home-field advantage is a huge boost, especially in the playoffs.

Home-field advantage in the World Series is not the solution, because even though the series might not go seven games, one league should not be able to have home-field advantage for several years in a row. The other reason is that every player selected to the teams is not going to have the same incentives, and that could begin a controversy in itself.

Major League Baseball needs to find another incentive that includes all participants. Maybe award a big bonus to the team that wins, or something like that. I hate to admit it, but most athletes like to fatten their pockets, so that probably is enough incentive to keep the games competitive.

I, as well as many others, probably would hate to see a team like the New York Yankees having home-field advantage several years in a row.

Major League Baseball should revert to the old system, because at least nobody can claim that there is an unfair advantage, but that’s what experiments are about. Right? So if the American League wins the World Series, we will see how many people come out of the woodwork and start barking.

Kevin Nash is the assistant sports editor for The Pitt News.