It was somewhat explainable for the world series cause the teams played a different set of opponents all year. That's the same scenario in every sport, though. Record-based HFA makes a lot more sense than "winner of the All-Star game" HFA. Only the NFL does things differently, because it's a single game at a neutral site. Now, if baseball decided on a seven-game series all at a neutral site, then maybe it'd be acceptable. exactly. No one is taking HFA away from the Celtics because they play in a weaker conference (they killed the West, I know, but the point stands) it seems like baseball often goes to great lengths to avoid doing the obvious