Just three days after Major League Baseball held coin flips to determine what teams will receive home-field advantage if any of the playoff races finish tied at the end of the season, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig announced Monday morning that the National League Central Division champion would be decided in the same fashion.
“It appears that no one actually wants to win the NL Central,” Selig said. “However, we already have a deal with Fox Sports which requires us to send eight teams to the playoffs. We discussed the possibility of taking five American League teams and three National League teams, but Fox did not wish to dilute the majesty of a possible Red Sox-Yankees playoff series by adding another AL team,” Selig explained.
The coin flips will be determined in a round-robin tournament beginning on Wednesday evening. The tournament will be televised on ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes. Celebrity flippers Ryan Seacrest, Dick Vitale, and Dane Cook will be doing the flipping. The first round of flips to air on Wednesday evening are as follows:
1. Cubs-Reds
2. Astros-Cardinals
3. Brewers-Pirates
The winner of the tournament will be allowed to select one player from each of the remaining five teams in the NL Central to join the champion’s playoff roster, in the hopes that the NL Central representative will avoid being swept in the NLDS. The remainder of any regular-season games scheduled with NL Central teams will be forfeited in order to give the NL Central champion a chance to set its playoff rotation and to rest its starters.
