MLB All-Star Game: World Series Home Field Meaningless
Since assigning World Series home field to the winner of the MLB All-Star Game in 2003, home teams have a 3-2 record for Series reaching Game 6.
Thanks to their 4-2 win Tuesday night at the MLB All-Star Game, the American League—again—will have home field advantage in the World Series. Major League Baseball would like all of you to think this means something. They are wrong.
Yes, home field advantage has merit. Over the last five years, those playing at home win roughly 2.5 more games a season than on the road. When you run that through the trusty calculator, home teams get a 3.08 percent boost by not eating hotel room service. Compared to the NBA, it is small potatoes. Last year, NBA teams won a whopping 60.5 percent of games at home. When the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors in two elimination games in Oakland to win the NBA Championship, it was a big deal.
Since tying the host of a World Series Game 7 to the winner of the All-Star Game in 2003, we have had two winner-take-all games. St. Louis won at Busch Stadium in 2011 against the Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants beat the Kansas City Royals on the road. The sample size is too small.
In the 14 years since the rules changed, five Series made it back to the host city for Game 6. The 2009 New York Yankees and 2013 Boston Red Sox clinched at home, but the 2003 Florida Marlins shut down the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. The running total of final games has the home team ahead 3-2.
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An embarrassing fact MLB would like you to forget comes with the new Wild Card games. In the eight played, home teams are 2-6. Both wins came in 2014. The plucky Royals and Pittsburgh Pirates grabbed the honors as the top Wild Cards. Pittsburgh, by the way, has lost the two other game hosted at PNC Park. Given you are supposedly using your ace pitcher at a friendly park, the record of failure is astounding.
The first World Series to have the home team sweep came in 1987. That year, riding the wave of a very loud Metrodome, the Minnesota Twins outlasted the Cardinals in seven. Mind you, that was the 84th World Series.
Being the home team in baseball carries one advantage. You are guaranteed 27 outs. Where it falls away depends on what happens between those outs. In 1952, the Brooklyn Dodgers held a 3-2 lead over their bitter rival Yankees with the last two games at Ebbets Field. Home sweet home, right? Wrong. The Bombers won Game 6 and 7 to win the Series. Since 1960, three teams won the Series on a walk-off hit. Bill Mazeroski’s home run salted the 1960 Fall Classic away for the Pirates at home. Joe Carter touched them all in Game 6 of the 1993 Series for the Toronto Blue Jays and Luis Gonzalez blooped a hit over where Derek Jeter should have been for the Arizona Diamondbacks’ only championship.
Ask the 1967 or 1975 Red Sox how they did with a Game 7 at Fenway. The 1968 Cardinals and 1979 Baltimore Orioles would like a word with you, too.
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Game 7 is a crapshoot. Although knowing you might have a small edge going in, much more depends on matchups and momentum than having that last out.