Die Macht » award home field to whichever league has t

MOSCOW -- Bayer Leverkusen qualified for the Champions League knockout stages after a 1-1 draw away to CSKA Moscow on Tuesday, but the German club had a nervous wait before knowing it had advanced.Kevin Volland gave Leverkusen the lead in the 17th minute from close range after he was left unmarked at a free kick. Leverkusen gave away a needless penalty with Benjamin Henrichs clumsy challenge on Mario Fernandes, but Bibras Natchos 76th-minute spot-kick wasnt enough to keep the fourth-placed Russian teams hopes of qualifying alive.Leverkusen was assured of qualifying after Monaco beat Tottenham 2-1 later Tuesday.Monaco has won Group E with 11 points. Leverkusen has seven points and Tottenham four, but Spurs has a worse head-to-head record with Leverkusen. CSKA is last with three points.Leverkusen remained unbeaten, but had to settle for a fourth draw of the group stage after Volland hit the post in the 80th. CSKA could have stolen a win a minute later, but the tired midfielder Alan Dzagoev, playing for the first time since September due to injury, missed the target.CSKA was playing with a diminished squad, with 18-year-old Fyodor Chalov making his European debut up front and just four outfield players as substitutes, none of them midfielders. Financial concerns kept the Russian teams squad small even before recent injuries and a suspension last week for midfielder Roman Eremenko, who tested positive for cocaine following the 2-2 draw with Leverkusen in Germany in September.It is the fourth season in a row that CSKA has failed to qualify from the group stage, and the Russian champion has not won any of its last nine games in Europes top competition. Red Wings Jerseys 2020 . The nimble-footed quarterback got his wish, dashing through the snow and a weary defence all the way into the NCAA record book. Detroit Red Wings Gear . Ferrer, trying to win his fourth title on Mexican soil, will next play South Africas Kevin Anderson, who eliminated American Sam Querrey,7-6 (2), 6-4. Also Wednesday, Gilles Simon (6) of France beat Donald Young of the United States 6-4, 6-3, Ukraines Alexandr Dolgopolov downed Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 6-3, 6-4 and Croatias Ivo Karlovic defeated Dudi Sela of Israel 7-6 (4), 6-2. https://www.cheapredwings.com/ . Miller reached right to deflect Mikhail Grabovskis attempt with just over 2 minutes remaining in regulation, and then made two more saves in the shootout Sunday to give the Sabres a 2-1 win over the Washington Capitals. Detroit Red Wings Pro Shop .com) - The women will also have a new champion at the Australian Open. Detroit Red Wings Shirts . The All-Pro lineman got the leg bent under him while trying to make a tackle during the first half of a 22-20 overtime loss at Miami on Thursday night. The medical staff initially thought hed torn the ligament, and the test a day later in Cincinnati confirmed it. The strangest thing about Bud Seligs decision to determine home-field advantage in the World Series on the outcome of the All-Star Game was how backward the connection was. The World Series comprises the seven most important games of the baseball season. The All-Star Game, judging by how its rosters are constructed and its play managed, is the least important. Short of granting home field to the winner of spring training split-squad games, or a pregame cow-milking contest, itd be hard to envision a sillier example of a tail wagging the dog.Before Seligs decision, it was determined by random chance -- more recently, an even/odd year alternation, and before that, a literal coin flip. Given the opportunity to overrule this, Selig chose an almost identical philosophy -- that home field is a mostly meaningless advantage that need not be earned, only inherited. The only explanation? That home-field advantage in the World Series doesnt actually matter.Thats the most generous justification of Seligs scheme, which will be unwound by baseballs new collective bargaining agreement. Its actually a rational position, with a sound foundation and some historical evidence backing it. A smart person could justifiably believe this position.Its also wrong, in a way that has arbitrarily tilted October baseball for almost a century and that might more systematically tilt October baseball for (at least) the next five years.Its important to briefly lay the foundation for the Home Field Advantage Doesnt Really Matter position: The advantage does not, logically, matter unless the series goes seven games. If a home team wins in fewer than seven, it didnt need its advantage -- it won without its advantage. And most series dont go to seven games. Since 1925, when the current 2-3-2 format became permanent, 62 percent were over before the final if necessary game could be made necessary.That still leaves 38 percent that did, 35 Game 7s, and home-field advantage was certainly desirable in those. But home-field advantage in baseball is a relatively weak force, promising the home team only about a 54-46 edge. Generously, we might bump that to 55-45, to reflect a slightly higher historical edge in the high-stakes World Series games. Applying that small edge to all the seventh games since 1925, wed expect one or two series outcomes to flip ... in nearly a century. For Selig, thats one unjust outcome every 53 years, a pretty small price to pay for your pet project (or better television ratings). The fact that seventh games have, in fact, gone 18-17 in favor of the visitors confirms that baseballs decision not to seriously grapple with the right way to determine home-field advantage has left few victims.So this is the logical/historical argument: The advantage rarely matters -- and when it does, it barely makes a difference. But this argument gets it super wrong.The key to understanding the true advantage comes not in Game 7, when the fourth and advantage-deciding home game takes place, but in the first. Home-field advantage seems to be less about getting a fourth game at home and more about getting the 2s in the 2-3-2.Remember that home-field advantage overall is only about 54 percent to 46 percent? If we break the World Series down by game, the results have been radically different. Since 1925:? Game 1: 57-34 ? Game 2: 55-36 ? Game 3: 50-41 ? Game 4: 44-47 ? Game 5: 37-36 ? Game 6: 35-19 ? Game 7: 17-18Or, if we group them by legs of the trip:? Games 1-2: .615 home winning percentage ? Games 3-5: .514 home winning percentage ? Games 6-7: .584 home winning percentageWell, sure, the brain wants to say, the team that starts at home must be better. But throughout these 92 years (91 series), home field has been determined either randomly or by a factor (All-Star Game victor) that has virtually nothing to do with the teams involved. There is no reason to think that the teams that had home field in Game 1 were better, and yet they have been, as a group, a postseason powerhouse. Teams that have started at home were twice as likely to sweep the World Series (12 times to six times) and nearly twice as likely to win the series in five games (12 times to seven times) -- even though these victors ended up with the home field disadvantage, playing three games at road and only two at home. In fact, after five games, the team that has played fewer games at home has clinched or led the series 49 times to 42.Which gets us here: The team that starts at home has won 59 percent of the World Series since 1925. If we have identified a real effect, this advantage is far greater than any typical unnderstanding of home field.dddddddddddd And weve found a more or less randomly determined variable that has swung almost nine World Series in one direction.If we have identified a real effect.This is the hard part. Statistical flukes happen! But lets try to find a good reason to accept this as truth, recognizing that each of these hypotheses could justify a separate study on its own:1. Game 1 is just differentInevitably, the announcers at next years World Series will mention how nervous everybody is. Theyll say that nothing can prepare you for the feeling of being in the World Series, and that itll take a few innings before the butterflies settle down. Perhaps this is even true! If it is, it would be reasonable to hypothesize that baseball players would prefer to be nervous among friends, in a home park, than nervous among enemies. Perhaps this amplifies the difference between home and road. Perhaps this explains why the advantage in Game 1 is bigger than the advantage in Game 3 (or in Game 7), when the players have become accustomed to the brighter lights of the World Series and it has gone back to being just baseball.2. Momentum, or something like itIf a team loses one game, it has been about 53 percent likely to lose the next -- not a particularly big difference, especially because the team that lost is most likely a little bit worse (which is why they lost).Overall, the World Series spread is right in line with the normal home/road gap: If a team lost a game and then got to play the next one at home -- either returning home (as from Game 2 to Game 3) or staying home (as from Game 1 to 2, Game 3 to 4, etc.) -- it won about 50 percent of its games. If a team lost a game and then had to play a game on the road, it won only 43 percent of its games. But one important exception: Home teams that lose Game 1 have come back to win 22 of 34 Games 2s.3. The advantage has a powerful subconscious, or barely conscious, effect all by itself Perhaps, knowing that theyre the underdogs, teams who start on the road enter the series with a sense of frustration, resignation, self-pity. Were getting extremely speculative now. But consider this quote from pitcher Chris Carpenter, talking about the 2013 World Series that his Cardinals played against the Red Sox:I think its very important to grab that home field. Last year we saw it play out in Boston. They had the opportunity to play more games there than we did in St. Louis.That quote came after the Series was over. The Series went six games. The Red Sox and Cardinals played exactly as many home games as each other, three apiece. And yet, We saw it play out. Carpenter describes it as though the Red Soxs numerical advantage manifested anyway, as though it were a factor well before Game 7. For some reason or another, it has been.In 2003, Bud Selig had a chance to fix the way home-field advantage is determined, and he tried to fix the All-Star Game instead. For the latter, he failed; the All-Star Game is played with no more competitive imperative now, and ratings have continued to sink. In the four years before Selig changed the rules, the All-Star Game drew 59 percent as many viewers as the first game of the same seasons World Series. In the four years after, that share dropped to 52 percent. In the past four years, its down to 43 percent. Nothing got fixed.Its wise and obvious that baseball would undo the change, and wiser and more obvious that theyd also find a less arbitrary way of awarding home-field advantage, an important thing. Its not necessarily clear that awarding it to the team with the best record is any more just, though; the difference between the leagues remains staggering, as the National League had a worse winning percentage in interleague play this year (.450) than the Angels had overall. It might actually be more just to award home field to whichever league has the best interleague record, though that would be a lot less convincing in years where the difference between leagues is slim.Whether it is or isnt perfect is maybe less important than that it makes sense. Bud Selig surely knew when he made his decision that he wasnt actually going to change the way that the All-Star Game was played; he was going to change the way the All-Star Game was watched. Whether or not the best record truly deserves home-field advantage, it at least makes sense. It gives the audience something it can believe in. Its the fan-friendly solution to the dilemma that Selig skipped over. ' ' '