And The Winner Should Be . . .

On the evening of Wednesday, September 10th, the California Angels of Anaheim and Orange County clinched their division. They are an outstanding 17.5 games ahead of Texas. So now for the remaining three weeks of the season they get to rest their starters and set up their rotation for the playoffs. Good for the Angels, but is it good for baseball? The Angels have nothing to play for. Now I’ve heard comments that Mike Scioscia is a former ballplayer and he won’t let his team get lazy and they’ll still compete, but c’mon. Torii Hunter isn’t going to crash into a wall in the bottom of the ninth to preserve a meaningless win. Mark Teixeira isn’t going to try to score from first on a long double to eke out a win against the Mariners.

Had Bud-dumber not decided that the All-Star winner would determine home field advantage for the World Series and instead declared that the team with the best in-season record would hold home field advantage, the Angels would still be competing. Currently they hold the best record in baseball, HOWEVA (imagine an ESPN sports anchor [name anyone?] doing his best Steven A. Smith impersonation) they only hold a one game lead over the Rays and the Cubs. (Interesting that since the Angels clinched, they have won five in a row and have extended their lead over the Cubs to two games and three over the Rays.) So perhaps my argument is lame since the Angels haven’t put it on cruise control – yet.

Now I know that this scenario isn’t going to play out every season. There are going to be years where the best team in baseball is ahead of everyone else by 10 games with two weeks to play.

[Side note – Going back to 2003 each year except for last year the best team in the NL was within four games of the best team in the AL. Here’s the breakdown not including last year.

2006 Yankees 97 wins Mets 97 wins
2005 White Sox 99 wins Cardinals 100 wins
2004 Yankees 101 wins Cardinals 105 wins
2003 Yankees 101 wins Braves 101 wins

There would be plenty of reason to still try and win. ]

But it would still force the #1 team in baseball to stay competitive and perhaps create a mini-rivalry with a team they wouldn’t normally care about. The Angels and their fans could watch the scoreboard and start to cheer against the Cubs, whereas now the Angels aren’t going to care about the Cubs unless both make it to the World Series.

I still think that home field advantage should go to the team that earned it. The Angels didn’t earn anything by having the AL compatriots win the game determined by a popularity contest. They will have earned the home field advantage by being the best team in baseball over the course of a full 162 game season.


NON-CFCL NOTES: Congratulations to Big Z on his no-hitter against the Astros. The Astros seem destined to be on the short end of historical baseball events for Chicago. Kerry Wood strikes out 20 Astros; The White Sox sweep the Astros in the 2005 World Series and now a no-hitter.

How would you like to be the Brewers management? They open their doors in a time of need and see the first no-hitter thrown in the history of Miller Park and it isn’t done by a Brewer pitcher, nor against the Brewer hitters. Nice little trivia question. Kind of like “Who got the first hit in the Houston Astrodome?” You would think the answer would be an Astro or some National League hitter (ok, so I’ve given you a hint – but I wanted to extend the comparison).