One-game playoff

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A one-game playoff or pennant playoff is a tiebreaker in certain American professional sports, to determine which of two teams, tied in the final standings, will qualify for a post-season tournament. Such a playoff is either a single game or a short series of games (such as best-2-of-3).

This is distinguished from the more general usage of the term "Playoff", which refers to the post-season tournament itself.

Contents 1 Major League Baseball 1.1 Background 1.2 Notable exceptions or oddities 1.3 Game history 1.3.1 American League 1.3.2 National League 1.3.2.1 One-Game Playoffs 1.3.2.2 Three-Game Playoffs 2 National Football League 3 Philippine Basketball Association

[edit] Major League Baseball

In Major League Baseball, teams that have the same record at the end of the season must play a playoff game(s) to determine the champion.

One game playoffs are currently used in Major League Baseball (MLB). While the American League has always used the one-game playoff, the National League used a three-game playoff until 1969. There have been six one-game playoffs and four three-game playoffs in baseball history. They are officially considered part of the regular season and are included in the standings.

[edit] Background

Up until the advent of divisional play in 1969, tied teams played a best-two-out-of-three game playoff in the National League and a one game playoff in the American League to determine the pennant winner and this the league's entrant into the World Series. Starting with divisional play in 1969, this was changed to a simple one game playoff. Home field advantage was determined by a coin flip. In the case of the NL's best-of-three playoffs (pre-1969), the winner of the toss can choose to host either the first game or both of the last two games. The wild card system, which began in 1994, has made it unnecessary to hold a playoff game in certain situations, such as when 2 teams have both qualified for the playoffs, but it needs to be determined as to which team is the division champion and which is the wild card entrant. However, playoff games are still possible, as demonstrated several times in the 1990s.

If two teams happen to tie at the close of the regular season, and if only one of them can advance, the rules currently require a one-game playoff to determine which team advances. This "one-game playoff" baseball game is actually part of the regular season, not the post-season. All the statistics from this extra game count as part of the regular season figures.

Because of the stark finality of it, such a playoff game or series often has much the same dramatic component as a Game 7 of a World Series, or a final game of any post-season Series.

In Major League Baseball, with the regular season being well over 100 games long (162 since 1961), the probability of two teams finishing in an exact tie is fairly small, and has been a relatively rare occurrence. Yet the closeness of many a pennant race has frequently presented at least the possibility of a tie.

Through the 2006 season, there have been 10 league, division or wild-card playoffs. The National League rules once called for a best-2-of-3 playoff series format, while the American League rules called for a single game. With the advent of divisional play and the need for a stricter post-season TV schedule, the rules were unified in 1969, and now any required playoff is strictly a one-game affair, on the day after the regular season is scheduled to end.

[edit] Notable exceptions or oddities

Such a playoff is only used if two teams are tied for a single postseason slot. On three occasions in Major League Baseball, two teams have finished tied, but because each team's record would qualify for the wild card, the one-game playoff is unnecessary. Instead, the team with a superior head-to-head record is awarded the division crown, with the other team given the wild card. In 2001, the Houston Astros and St. Louis Cardinals tied for first in the National League Central with record of 93-69, and the Astros winning the division. In 2005, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox each finished 95-67 in the American League East with the Yankees posting the better head-to-head record. In 2006, the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers finished tied with records of 88-74 and the Padres winning the division.

Occasionally, some races will see one team being forced to cancel a game late in the season due to a rainout. If the rainout causes a team to finish one-half game up or down in the division (i.e. one more win or loss than the other team, but an equal amount in the other category) that rainout must be made up before any playoff game can happen. Assuming no other convenient date is possible, the makeup would occur the day after the regular season ends. A potential playoff game would be played the day after, typically the day the postseason is scheduled to begin. This scenario has never occurred in baseball history. A notable example of the scenario being possible was the 2006 National League Central race between the Cardinals and Astros. Because of a rainout in September between the Cardinals and San Francisco Giants, it was possible that this game would be made up the Monday after the season ended, with a potential Cardinals-Astros playoff being scheduled for that Tuesday. Instead, an Astros loss on the final day of the season clinched the division for the Cardinals, causing neither game to be necessary.

The season-ending matchup of the Chicago Cubs and the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds on October 8, 1908, in which the Cubs prevailed 4-2, is sometimes thought of as a "playoff". Although it had that effect, it was actually a makeup game necessitated by a tied game on September 23, in which a baserunning mistake by young Giants' player Fred Merkle cost the Giants a victory.

[edit] Game history

Teams with home-field advantage are denoted in bold.

[edit] American League

Year	Winning Team	Losing Team	Score
1948	Cleveland Indians	Boston Red Sox	8-3
1978	New York Yankees	Boston Red Sox	5-4
1995	Seattle Mariners	California Angels	9-1

[edit] National League

[edit] One-Game Playoffs

Year	Winning Team	Losing Team	Score
1980	Houston Astros	Los Angeles Dodgers	7-1
1998	Chicago Cubs	San Francisco Giants	5-3
1999	New York Mets	Cincinnati Reds	5-0

[edit] Three-Game Playoffs

Year	Winning Team	Losing Team	Scores
1946	St. Louis Cardinals	Brooklyn Dodgers	4-2, 8-4
1951	New York Giants	Brooklyn Dodgers	3-1, 0-10, 5-4
1959	Los Angeles Dodgers	Milwaukee Braves	3-2, 6-5 (12)
1962	San Francisco Giants	Los Angeles Dodgers	8-0, 7-8, 6-4

[edit] National Football League

Professional football, specifically the National Football League, has an elaborate formula for determining its playoff qualifiers. However, before the merger of the National Football League and the American Football League in 1969, it was possible to have a playoff game if 2 teams tied for a division or conference title. 9 of these playoffs occurred between 1941 and 1965.

The Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans of the National Football League tied at the end of the 1932 season. They held an extra game to determine the champion. Unlike subsequent post-season playoffs, this NFL Playoff Game, 1932 was considered part of the regular season, and was equivalent to the baseball tie-breaking playoff games described above.

The NFL split into two divisions in 1933, and began playing a single post-season NFL Championship game. If two teams in a single division tied for first place, the rules also provided for a one-game tie-breaking playoff to determine which team would advance to the league championship game. This was the practice from 1933 to 1966. Unlike the 1932 contest, these tiebreakers were not part of the regular season's standings. The league's last one game playoff occurred in 1965. Since 1967, the NFL has used a set of tiebreaking rules to break ties.

Year	Winning Team	Losing Team	Score
1941	Chicago Bears	Green Bay Packers	33-14
1943	Washington Redskins	New York Giants	28-0
1947	Philadelphia Eagles	Pittsburgh Steelers	21-0
1950	Cleveland Browns	New York Giants	8-3
1950	Los Angeles Rams	Chicago Bears	24-14
1952	Detroit Lions	Los Angeles Rams	31-21
1957	Detroit Lions	San Francisco 49ers	31-27
1958	New York Giants	Cleveland Browns	10-0
1965	Green Bay Packers	Baltimore Colts	13-10 (OT)

[edit] Philippine Basketball Association

As opposed to North American usage, in which one-game playoffs are held to determine a champion, in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), one-game playoffs, commonly called "knockout games" are held when teams are tied in a last qualifying seed in the team standings. An extra game will be played in order to determine which team would be eliminated and which team will advance.

With the restructuring of the playoffs starting at the 2005-06 season, one game playoffs are also held which do not merit automatic elimination. When more than two teams are tied in a critical spot in the team standings, the team with the best points difference on games between the tied teams will automatically get the best seed, while the two worst teams will play in the lesser seed. If there are more than four teams tied, the two best teams play for the highest berth, while the two weakest teams play for the third-strongest berth.

Season	Conference	Winning team	Losing team	Score
2005-06	Fiesta	Barangay Ginebra Kings	Red Bull Barako	109-102
		Talk 'N Text Phone Pals	Air21 Express	101-91
	Philippine	Coca-Cola Tigers	Air21 Express	87-73
2006-07	Philippine	Purefoods Chunkee Giants	Sta. Lucia Realtors	92-78