If you’re reading my site, then I’m sure you know this already. Former Ft Worth Star Telegram reporter TR Sullivan is the beat writer now for texasrangers.com/mlb.com on the Rangers. Anyway, the weekly mailbag feature has been pretty much a useless one, as it used to be filled with questions like “When will the Rangers get some hitting?” and “When will Hicks spend some money?” – real hard hitting questions there.
Anyway, since TR took over the quality of the questions has gone up. I’ve read them all the time, but never said much about it. However, in the issue sent out this past Monday, TR used a question I sent. Here’s what I asked:
I have a question about tying the All Star Game to the World Series home-field advantage. When it was first implemented, there were quite a few statements made about it being a “two-year experiment”, and that the idea would have to be voted on again by the player’s union after those two seasons were up. I know we’re a year or two past that now, and haven’t seen any formal announcement of it being extended, how long, etc. What is the actual formal status of the “This one counts” All-Star Game stuff? Was it approved indefinitely? Is there a chance it will be revoked/changed/altered? I’d really like to find out this information.
TR replied with this:
The Players Association has approved of its use through the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, which runs through this year. It will likely be an issue — albeit a minor one — in the upcoming negotiations. The owners want it, but there are players who have been vocally opposed to it.
My response is good. I doubt it will much change, but I really would much rather home field be tied to something more concrete like which league has the better record in the regular season. Not the All Star game win. I understand the owners wanting the All Star game to count for something. I’m not against that, but I’m not for tying the World Series to that. Tie it to something else; although I don’t know what to tie it to at the moment.
What would you do?