Countryside games highlight new season
Expansion among innovations for Series 3
Baseball Philippines will be planting new seeds in 2008 when the upcoming season takes the nation's premier baseball circuit into two outlying provinces. The move is among several innovations incoporated by the young league to invigorate the game in the nation.
Series 3, which opens the 2008 season with the BP All-Star Game on March 23, features weekend sets of games in both Carmona, Cavite just southwest of Manila and Subic, Olongapo province to the northwest.
The lush new baseball fields in Carmona will play host to games in a date yet to be determined with both the league's new clubs seeing action. The Subic Bay freeport zone in Olongapo province will likewise host a weekend set this summer. The latter was a former home of the United States Navy in the 20th century.
The 2008 campaign opens when the Cebu Dolphins, last year's top team at 14-6 go up against the Forward Taguig Patriots on March 30 at the Rizal Memorial Baseball Stadium in Manila. The historic and nostalgic stadium will also be the site for all other regular season games as well as the entire postseason.
For the regular season, teams play each other twice. All but one team qualify for the postseason. The teams with the two best records automatically gain entry into the second round of the playoffs.
The next four teams slug it out during first round action of the playoffs which takes place on the weekend of July 5-6. Both higher seed teams have a twice-to-beat advantage.
The two first round playoff winners will then face the league's top seeds the following weekend. Both top seeds have a twice-to-beat edge to determine who will play in the best-of-three Baseball Philippines Series Championship beginning July 19.