Modified double-elimination format replacing round-robin play for ’15 series

Cartersville L.L., Cartersville, Georgia, lost its first two games of the 2007 World Series before winning four straight to win that year’s title. The team will remain the only one to accomplish the feat in a Bangor World Series.

Cartersville Little League, of Cartersville, Georgia, lost its first two games of the 2007 Senior League Baseball World Series. The U.S. Southeast champ then proceeded to win its last two pool play games to force a tiebreaker that advanced it to the semifinal round.

The rest was history, as Cartersville became the first team to lose its first two games before going on to win a Bangor World Series.

Now Cartersville will be the only team to accomplish the feat. That’s because the Senior League Baseball World Series is doing away with a round-robin format and changing to a modified double-elimination format instead.

The 10 teams will still be divided into two pools of five teams each. However, each pool will conduct its own double-elimination tournament until only two teams remain. The two remaining teams in each pool will then play a winner-take-all semifinal.

“This is the format that Little League is using at all of their tournaments this year,” World Series Tournament Director Mike Brooker said. “It’s what they’ve done in Williamsport, and at their regionals in the last couple three years anyway, and it’s the tournament they want followed at all the World Series.”

The nine Senior League regions and host district will be assigned to the two pools via a blind draw that will be held within the next couple of weeks. The first region to be drawn for each pool will receive a bye on opening day. Those two teams will be ineligible for the two byes for the next four series.

The format change will decrease the number of World Series games from 23 to 19, as each team will be guaranteed at least three games, down from the four they got in round-robin pool play. The decrease in the number of games will give series organizers more time to make up rainouts, if need be, as there will be an off day scheduled between the semifinals and the championship game.

Pabao L.L., Willemstad, Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, came out of pool playin 2008 with a 2-2 record and made it all of the way to the championship game before losing to North Cumberland L.L., Upper Deerfield, New Jersey.

In the past, the semifinals were held at 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. on Friday, with the championship game on Saturday. Now the semifinals will be held at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Thursday. Friday will feature an all-star game pitting the two pools against each other, absent players from the teams advancing to the title game.

Brooker acknowledged there may be some grumbling about the format change.

“Certainly the biggest con is that a team that has won two or three games and is undefeated in their pool could be eliminated by a team with one loss,” he said. “But in the current format that we have, where we play cross-over games, you could have a 4-0 team playing a 3-1 team from another pool. Technically, they could probably play a 2-2 team from another pool, and that’s one game for all the marbles.”

Gone will be the prospect of two teams from the same pool battling in the championship game, on occurrence that has happened four times, in 2003, 2008, 2013, and last year. Gone also will be the tradition of the Maine District 3 champ playing Canada to kick off the series, a tradition that began in 2005. The two teams have been in Pool A together ever since the series moved to Bangor in 2002.

The day-to-day schedule of the series won’t change much, though. Games on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday will still begin at 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 5 p.m., and 8 p.m. The schedule for opening day may be moved up one hour, Brooker said. Since 2005, the first game of the series has begun at noon on Sunday.

“We’ve had a couple situations in recent years where that last game didn’t start until 9,” he said. “I think one year it didn’t start until 10. So we’re going to give us a little more time on the front end on Sunday.”

If ESPN chooses to broadcast the semifinals and wants them to be played on Friday, the off day would then be Thursday, Brooker said.

Under the round-robin format, the top two teams in each pool qualified for the semifinals, with the first-place team in each pool playing the second-place team in the other pool. Ties for first and second place were resolved by first looking at the tied teams’ head-to-head record. If that failed to resolve the tie, the teams’ ratio of runs allowed per innings on defense were compared, with the lowest ratio winning.

The ratio came into play to determine second place for Pool B in 2003 (Urbandale L.L., Urbandale, Iowa, came out on top in a three-way tie for second with South Vineland L.L., Vineland, New Jersey; and Washington County L.L., Brenham, Texas), second place for Pool A in 2007 (Cartersville bested Whalley L.L., Surrey, British Columbia, Canada; and Saipan L.L., Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands), and second place for Pool B in 2008 (Pabao L.L., Willemstad, Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, advanced to the championship game after needing the tiebreaker to reach the semifinals over Tuscarawas L.L., New Philadelphia, Ohio; and Bryan National West L.L., Bryan, Texas).