Heads or Tails?
First let’s talk about the elephant in the room: my last article titled “The Joy of Being a Twins Fan”. Well, we all know they went on to miss the playoffs by one run, losing the tiebreaker game with the White Sox 0-1. I stand by my claim from the previous article. I really love being a Twins fan, win or lose.
OK, so what is this article going to be about? A coin toss. Because, in my opinion, that was the deciding factor in who got in. Sure, either team could potentially beat the other on the road. But it didn’t happen often this year. The Twins took 8 out 10 games in the Metrodome against the White Sox, and only 2 games in Chicago. Home field advantage for this tiebreaker was HUGE. And it was decided by a coin toss.
In the future, I think this rule needs to change. Home field advantage for a tiebreaker game should be determined by who won more games when they played each other that year. The Twins won 10 games, and the White Sox won 8, so the Twins should have gotten to play the tiebreaker at home.
The year the Yankees and Red Sox finished in a tie, they used this method to determine the division champ. The difference in that situation was that both teams got in because one was the wild card. So in that situation there is no point in a tiebreaker game.
The Twins and White Sox however, both had worse records than the team that earned the wild card this year. And so a tiebreaker was needed. Why not pick home field based on who whooped up on the other team more that year?
Anyway, no use crying over what’s done. It was a great season and very fun to watch.
Comments from old site:
Written by adam
Posted: Sunday, October 5, 2008 at 11:26 AM
If we win the toss I think we don’t complain. I’m kind of a homer for the Twinks so I wanted home field bad but I agree the toss was not the right way to decide. I still think you have to score more than zero to win any game anywhere though.:) p.s. I have your blog as an RSS feed to my iGoogle page, so I find out when youve written pretty soon after you post. I’ll see you at practice.