List of Major League Baseball tie-breakers

[6] Home-field advantage for tie-breakers was determined by a coin flip through the 2008 season, after which performance-based criteria, starting with head-to-head record of the tied teams, were put in place.

In 2007, for example, the Philadelphia Phillies, New York Mets, San Diego Padres, Colorado Rockies, and Arizona Diamondbacks finished the season within two games of one another.

[8] The possibility existed for as many as four teams to be locked in a series of tie-breakers that year to decide the NL East, West, and Wild Card.

[9] Similarly, late in the 2012 season the possibility existed for the New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, and either the Texas Rangers or Oakland Athletics to all finish with the same record.

This could have required the teams to play a complex set of multiple games to determine divisional and wild card winners, a situation which Jayson Stark described as potentially "baseball's worst scheduling nightmare.

"[10] The first tie-breaker, held in 1946, decided the winner of the NL pennant between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Brooklyn Dodgers, who had finished the season tied at 96–58.

One of the most famous moments in MLB history came in the final game of the 1951 National League tie-breaker series.

Finally, Bobby Thomson hit a walk-off home run which has come to be known as the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" to give the Giants the 5–4 victory and the National League pennant.

In 2008, a Jim Thome home run and a stellar performance by John Danks helped the White Sox edge out the Twins 1–0.

The Twins ended up on the winning side the following year, tying the game in the 10th after going down a run and then walking off in the 12th inning to defeat the Tigers 6–5.