All Star Madness

Before the All-Star Game finally ended in the middle of the night, I wonder how many people thought of the 11-inning tie game of 2002? Remember how P.O.'ed everyone was? Remember Bud "Light" Selig's ridiculous solutions to the problem? If any good came out of that game is that it made this game possible. It was exciting and the whole Yankee Stadium scenario made it even better, but if it had been played in any other city, many of the same people who complained in 2002 would have been whining about how long baseball games take to play these days. Believe it or not, some people are whining about this game. They know nothing. This is how major league baseball has been played for literally 137 years. If the game happens to go on way past their bedtimes, then they should petition the owners to go back to daytime ball. The thought of baseball actually doing this (not to mention the networks that have so much power in these matters) is as laughable as those alledged "fans" and "experts" moaning about late-ending games in the first place. Can you imagine what might have happened if they called this one after 11 innings? I'd rather not think about it (Unless it were to cost Bud "Light" his job).

All that aside, the real problem here is that the all-important home-field advantage for the World Series is currently decided by an exhibition game. That's bad enough, but due to the nature of this particular exhibition game, with it's expanded rosters and the demand that every team be represented, the game itself is not played normally. It's played like a preseason game and that makes the entire home field advantage concept a bad joke. It would make just as much sense to decide it by the preseason standings.

So, what should they do? Well, here are some ways to make the Major League All-Star Game more significant and interesting:

1) Do NOT let Bud "Light" make any of the decisions. We'll be ahead of the game right there.

2) Drop the home field advantage rule. It isn't fair to anyone. Give the extra home game to the team with the best record, and if that doesn't leave the teams enough time to print and sell tickets, then go back to the alternate system they had for decades. There was nothing wrong with it.

3) Shorten the roster back to the regular season mode of 25 players and to hell with every team having at least one member. A player is either good enough or he's not.

4) Go by position. If a left fielder is not voted in because three other left fielders are having better years, but the player's numbers are better than the center fielder, too bad. If the manager doesn't select you, tough. That's the breaks. Considering how distorted the voting process is, if an All-Star bonus clause was negotiated into a player's contract and he doesn't get in, he should be yelling at his agent, not the manager or the fans. Shut up and move on.
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5) There's nothing wrong with fans voting for their favorites, whether the player is deserving or not, but every year ballot stuffing leads to the usual boring arguments. One way to reduce this problem is to make fan-voting an online-only procedure. Fans could register on MLB.com for free and they can vote for anyone they want, but they can vote no more than three times for any one player, period. Fans can vote at home, or they can walk up to any number of computer kiosks at the ballpark instead of filling out old fashioned ballots. But the only way to vote is to register, or already be registered, just like regular voting. And if anybody actually puts that much effort into getting around it or even hacks into the system to stuff the ballots, well whoever that may be has serious issues which their eventual confinement to the appropriate facility will hopefully prevent them from having too much of an overall effect.

6) How about this: The fans can select the All-Star Team and the media can select the All-Snub Team. To add substance to the "rejected" label they could dress the Snubs in poorly designed knockoff uniforms and play the All-Snub Game in some empty bush league ballpark with no TV or radio coverage and the only way for the hacks to report the game is by Morse Code. Instead of the DHL FanFest they would have the Pony Express SnubFest. Instead of the Home Run Derby, they could have the Warning Track PowerPlay. And if the game is tied after nine innings or the 11PM curfew, everyone drops what their doing and goes home.

[Sorry, Mr. Selig, did I wake you? Go back to sleep.]

Seriously though, the media should just stop babbling about perceived snubs. It's getting to be a genuine waste of ink, paper, airtime and bandwidths. Here's a much better idea: How about talking about the players who ARE in the All-Star Game? Oh, yeah, I almost forgot the edict: "All the negativity that's fit to scream." As long as they don't change the current All-Star selection process, we're all stuck with it and, unfortunately, it will result in the same tired talk again next season and forever after. I'd like to think that there aren't that many stupid people in the sports world.



Then again, I used to think that way about politicians.