Baseball: A need for a playoff overhaul in Southern Section

Southern Section people like to criticize the City Section about everything, but there's one thing the City Section does right _ it awards home games to the highest seeded teams in the playoffs.

In the Southern Section, the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in Division 1 baseball, Huntington Beach Edison and Santa Ana Mater Dei, will have hosted one playoff game if they make it to Dodger Stadium next weekend. That's because luck more than performance gets you a home playoff game after the first round.

Coin flips mostly decide home-field advantage after the first round in the Southern Section. The incoming commissioner, Rob Wigod, should look into overhauling the system.

Of course, the commissioner does not have the power to make the decision. That rests with the schools themselves. But the commissioner can provide leadership on the issue. And this playoff format is used for all the sports. It has been discussed before but doesn't seem to gain enough support for a change.

-- Eric Sondheimer

Comments

[james gossett]

The section is way to big for the writer's suggestion. It is unfair for the schools in the north or east to be traveling that distance every time. IF the section were smaller and the traveling distances were more equal, I could then see the writers point. But with a section as large as the SS , it is only fair to make everyone travel. The seedings are done as fair as possible already, but there are too many parameters to take into account to allow the #1 seeds to always have home games.

[HSBASE]

They should also make it double elimination or the later rounds the best 2 out of 3.

[Buckwheat cakes]

How about Bill Turtzer and a divining rod?

[Hariton]

just give the higher seed the home game when it comes down to a flip

so really no more flips needed.