Hallelujah! MLB finally makes right call on World Series home-field advantage

Ryan Fagan

Hallelujah! MLB finally makes right call on World Series home-field advantage image

Ding-dong, the fix is dead.
Which old fix?
That Selig fix.
Ding-dong, the All-Star fix is dead.

As first reported by The Associated Press and confirmed elsewhere, starting with the 2017 season, the All-Star Game will no longer be used to determine home-field advantage in the World Series. Instead, the team with the best record will have World Series home-field advantage. 

Friggin’ hallelujah. 

WATCH: Highlights from every MLB All-Star Game since 1970 

We’re not going to get into Bud Selig’s complicated legacy as MLB’s commissioner. In many ways, he was very, very good for baseball. In others, he wasn’t so great. His reactionary decision to attach home-field advantage in the World Series to an exhibition contest might have been his worst idea (though not as harmful as the blind eye toward PEDs). 

You remember the debacle. The 2002 All-Star Game, held in Selig’s own Milwaukee ballpark, Miller Field, ended in a 2-2 tie after both teams ran out of pitchers after 11 innings. The enduring image from that contest wasn’t Barry Bonds rounding the bases after hitting a home run off Roy Halladay or Omar Vizquel’s triple that chased home Robert Fick (no, really). 

No, the enduring image was Selig standing there with his arms up in the air in frustration as he realized what was happening to what was supposed to be his showcase event in his town. 

You remember the moment. 

Yep. 

Selig fixed the “problem” with a sledgehammer. In a move approved by the owners in January 2003, Selig gave home-field advantage in the World Series to the league that won the All-Star Game. Fox, the league’s TV partner, loved the idea, of course. It didn’t care about anything but increasing the importance (read: eyeballs) of the game it was broadcasting in July. 

To be fair, the previous method of determining home-field advantage was far from perfect. It was an every-other-year scenario. The AL had home-field in odd-numbered years, and the NL had it in even-numbered years. Sometimes, that was randomly just. 

In 1986, for example, the Mets (108 wins) had home-field and won Game 7 at Shea Stadium against the Red Sox (95 wins). Sometimes, it really wasn’t — the year before, the Royals (91 wins) won Game 7 of the 1985 series at home against the Cardinals (101 wins). 

MORE: Nine of the worst All-Star Game performances ever

Of course, home-field advantage doesn't mean an automatic Game 7 win for the home team. The Cubs won this year's Game 7 in Cleveland. 

And Selig’s idea of attaching an extra degree of importance to the All-Star Game, as a stand-alone idea, wasn’t crazy. 

But with the way the game had always been played — and continued to be played after 2002 — the idea was, well, mind-boggling. To match Selig's stated goal — fit the "This Time It Counts" motto — the All-Star Game would have had to undergo a complete reworking. That didn't happen, of course. 

The starting lineups were still chosen by a popular vote from fans. The best pitchers still never threw more than two innings. The best position players were still typically out of the game after two or three at-bats, replaced by the guys in latter innings who were typically injury replacements to the roster. 

So the result was a convoluted setup that thumbed its nose at logic. If any rational person had set out to build, from scratch, the ideal way to construct a midseason appreciation/showcase for the best players in baseball, they wouldn’t have come up with MLB’s system in a million years. 

Now, though, order has been restored to the All-Star universe. The midsummer classic is once again what it was always supposed to be, an exhibition where the best in baseball gather to put on a show for the fans. 

Hallelujah, the "fix" is dead.

Ryan Fagan

Ryan Fagan Photo

Ryan Fagan, the national MLB writer for The Sporting News, has been a Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2016. He also dabbles in college hoops and other sports. And, yeah, he has way too many junk wax baseball cards.