The Bernstein Brief: MLB Ends The Stupidity
By Dan Bernstein--
CBSChicago.com senior columnist
(CBS) As news trickled in early Thursday morning of what was contained in the newly agreed-upon-to-agree MLB collective bargaining agreement, there was at least one reason to celebrate amid the arcane descriptions of luxury tax thresholds and draft rule changes.
The All-Star Game will no longer determine World Series home-field advantage. The unfair, shortsighted and indefensible Bud Selig brainchild is finally dead after 14 years, and the team with the better record will now be rewarded properly.
Commissioner Rob Manfred was a guest on the Boers and Bernstein show back in May and was pressed directly on amending the rule in exactly this manner.
"I guess that I understand the proposition that using the record over the entire course of the season, maybe, intellectually, is a more satisfying rule," he said then. "But the fact of the matter is the rule we have now is a lot better than the rule we used to have, which was we rotated it.
"I clearly understand the argument. It's a question of balancing the need to protect one important piece of our product against a little intellectual purity. I happen to think that on this we got the balance correct."
Except they didn't, and he knew it. Teams will still be incentivized to win the All-Star Game by a simpler motivation, now -- a big pool of money. He gets them caring enough to play that night with a little something on the line but disconnects it from affecting the game's biggest stage.
Intellectually satisfying, indeed.
(Even if the old silliness may have happened to benefit a certain recent World Series participant.)
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's "Boers and Bernstein Show" in afternoon drive. You can follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein and read more of his columns here.
