SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The traditionalists cried foul when Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig broke with convention and changed the rules on how home-field advantage would be decided for the World Series.
It was custom for the home-field advantage to alternate between the American League and National League but Selig, in an attempt to add some spice to the mid-season All-Star game, changed all that a few years ago.
He deemed that the league that won the All-Star game would get the first two and last two games of the World Series, upsetting the game’s devotees.
The critics argued that home-field advantage could be decided by players who would ultimately not even play in the Fall Classic.
They proposed the MLB follow the same model used by the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League, whereby the team with the best regular-season record got the home-field advantage.
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Their please fell on deaf ears but, at least this year, the argument has become a mute debate and Selig has been vindicated because several of the key players in the All-Star game are in the World Series, which opened on Wednesday night when the National League’s San Francisco Giants hosted the Detroit Tigers.
The Tigers’ ace pitcher Justin Verlander was also the American League’s starting pitcher in the All-Star game but was knocked around for five first-inning runs in an 8-0 loss.
Giants’ third baseman Pablo Sandoval tripled home three runs against Verlander.
In contrast, San Francisco’s Matt Cain, who started for the National League, pitched a pair of shutout innings to get credit for the win.
Giants outfielder Melky Cabrera was named Most Valuable Player although he is not involved in the World Series after he was left off the roster when he failed a doping test during the regular-season.
Verlander admitted that he had not treated the All-Star game as seriously as he might normally have, and was more intent on entertaining fans with triple digit (100 miles per hour) pitches than getting strikeouts.
“I wasn’t not trying to get people out,” he told reporters ahead of the World Series.
“There’s a difference. When I’m throwing 100 in the ninth, I’m trying to get people out. It just so happens I wanted to do it in the first and it didn’t work out well.”
With the benefit of hindsight, Verlander said he wished the American League had won and the Tigers had home-field advantage for the World Series but it was not his immediate concern.
“I treated it almost like I was coming out of the bullpen, knowing I could go one or two innings,” he said. “It was just a different scenario altogether.
“Do I wish it would have worked out a little bit better and we’d be at home right now? Absolutely, but it didn’t, and we’re here.”
(Editing by Julian Linden)