Yesterday, Tom Verducci of SI was interviewed by Charlie Steiner of Baseball Beat (XM Radio channel 175, "MLB Home Plate"), and in the course of their conversation, the excitement and tension in this year's 15 inning All-Star game came up, and Verducci (originally a detractor of "This time it counts", by his own admission) pointed to the excitement in extra innings not only evident in the stands but also in the dugouts (where even players who had been replaced were still on pins and needles on the top step of the dugout) as proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that "This time it counts" is successful, and anyone who still doubts this is living in an alternate universe and doesn't know it. He might as well have used that famous line that is now regularly used with respect to the Wild Card: "The debate is over."
I found Cook delivers gutsy, memorable effort to be an excellent recap of those tense extra innings. Even better was Tenth inning provides All-Star drama. It is certainly thrilling to read how Miguel Tejada's play for the final out in the bottom of the 10th nearly brought down the house.
It is of course noteworthy that what brought down the house was not the AL (the home team) winning (in fact, this play was one of many that threatened to prolong the game past the endurance levels of both managers and probably many of the fans there), but simply a fantastic play. Let me underscore that again: a play that did not resolve this game that now "Counts!" I wonder if there's an object lesson there ....
At any rate, my response to Tom Verducci would be: I'm not going to seriously argue that Home Field advantage in the World Series hanging in the balance may have heightened the drama last Tuesday at Yankee Stadium. After all, if the players and the managers believe it makes a difference, then it effectively does. I would only mention that famous logical fallacy Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Just because the game was terribly exciting after Bud Selig made this "tweak" in the All-Star game, does not prove cause-and-effect. More importantly, it does not prove that this "tweak" was necessary to make the players try that hard to win. Surely there are still old time fans alive who can remember when the players went all out to win the All-Star game at a time when the game had zero impact on the post-season.
However, that has never been my argument against this gimmick, though I still question how big a deal it really is, since home field advantage only matters if the World Series reaches the 7th game.
My argument is this: what is so wrong about treating this game like the exhibition game that it is??? To approach it from the opposite end, it is still obvious that this game is still basically an exhibition game when Terry Francona inserts his 3rd pitcher to begin the 4th inning of a scoreless game, and replaced Alex Rodriguez with Joe Crede at about the same time (and I'm a White Sox fan so I loved seeing Crede in there so early). If A-Rod had somewhere else to be later in the evening, then maybe there should be some way to replace him from the start (If the game really matters, then players should be able to adjust their schedules around that game, don't you think?). And if a pitcher is only allowed to pitch one inning, then maybe he should be replaced too. After all, if the game really matters, then everyone on the team should show up ready to play for real, not with a list of exemptions a mile long.
Obviously this is still pretty much an exhibition game. To take what is pretty much an exhibition game and translate it into Home Field advantage in the World Series is illogical.
No comments:
Post a Comment