Friday, May. 16, 2008
Opinion: single vs. double-elimination format
Tod Palmer
sports editor
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ReprintTo put it mildly, John McDonald isn’t a fan of the Kansas State High School Activities Association’s single-elimination postseason format.
That, no doubt, became all the more true Tuesday when his Olathe East baseball team suffered a stunning defeat against previously winless Shawnee Mission North in its regional opener.
Finishing 17-3 during the regular season for the second consecutive year, the Hawks appeared poise to reach the Class 6A state tournament for a second consecutive year.
At the very least, I believed — and even told McDonald as much last week — that a victory against the Indians was mere formality.
Boy, was I wrong.
And I don’t blame McDonald for his frustration over the single-elimination format.
A strong case can be made to move to a double-elimination system.
Especially with baseball, the one-and-done format doesn’t always reward the best teams.
Sometimes, like Tuesday at the College Boulevard Activity Center, it actually punishes them.
If East and SM North took the field nine times this week, I give even odds that the Hawks would prevail all nine times.
But the Indians won that one-in-10 chance.
It can’t be easy for McDonald or his players, in particular the eight seniors, to work so hard through a 20-game regular season with only one goal in mind and then see it all crumble in less than two hours.
It’s not fair to the program. I get it, and I’ve never been shy about ripping the KSHSAA for decisions I deem questionable (or downright idiotic) or its myriad arcane ways.
That said, I actually favor the single-elimination format.
For starters, a four-team regional played under the current format lasts three games and only three games.
But under the double-elimination rules, that same regional might require as many as seven games.
Given the fickle Kansas weather, which could easily wash out a week of games as it did a few times this spring, it’s a big risk to take with such important games.
A seven-game slate would take at least three days to play, which means two days of heavy rain easily could derail an entire postseason.
Moreover, it’s too big a risk for the kids.
In the double-elimination setup, a team could be required to play as many as five games in three days. Most teams aren’t stocked with enough pitching to motor through 35 innings in such a short span.
The temptation to pitch kids too many innings would be great, so injuries might mount and teams could be left without key players at state.
Those are rational reasons not to change the status quo, but as far as I’m concerned the biggest reason is purely emotional.
Every game matters in a single-elimination format without exception. That’s the nature of such playoffs, and it’s not necessarily true in the double-elimination system.
There is something special about the must-win setting. It creates an urgency and an intensity that doesn’t always exist in other circumstances.
Besides, everybody loves an underdog.
It’s a shame, and I’m disappointed for East that it was on the wrong end of a David-versus-Goliath slaying, but there’s something spectacular about it at the same time.
One of the greatest things about sports is the build up, the anticipation, that sense that on any given day anything is possible.
The U.S. hockey team could upset the mighty Soviet Union squad.
A brash soon-to-be-panty-hose-hawking quarterback could cement a legend with a guarantee.
Where would we be without Jim Valvano’s mad dash after his North Carolina State team upset unbeatable Houston in the 1983 NCAA Men’s Basketball championship game?
The belief and the spirit it evokes is essential to sport.
Does it necessarily ensure the best team wins every time? Heck, no.
But isn’t that why we play the games (and why we watch as well)?