The Coin Toss

The coin toss seems to be a fairly mundane portion of the game by which the home and visiting teams are determined. Given that a coin toss has about a 50/50 chance of being heads or tails ( I believe in some studies done tails actually comes up more) the general rule of thumb for the manager making the call is to call heads, which is in keeping with the baseball gods. However more importantly once the manager wins the toss, home should always be the choice.

When a manager wins the coin flip and elects to be visitor he is making a profound statement that could inevitably cost him the ball game before the first pitch is thrown. As I always alert my players when an opposing manager elects to be visitor, he is thinking he can score runs in the very first inning of the contest, which outweighs in his opinion the definite advantage of receiving the last at bat. So when preparing my players before the beginning of the game an extra emphasis is placed on not allowing runs to score in the first inning. As a manager I am able to accomplish three things here, motivate my team by explaining the disrespect associated with such a move,  have my players goal oriented from the first pitch by not allowing a run, and by swaying the momentum of the game in my favor by holding them in the first and recovering the advantage of the last at bat, which I had lost at the coin toss.