The 2005 All-Star Game

Ok... Major League Baseball's All Star Game is probably the most popular All-Star game in professional sports but has lost a lot of steam and is becoming more and more show and less and less sport.

This year they've adopted the slogan "This One Counts" in reference to the fact the winning league gets home field advantage in the World Series. Big deal. There has been, however, a lot more publicity this year.

So we start this year's game telecast off with Billy Bob Thorton talking about his new movie, a remake of the Bad News Bears, and then works it into Major League Baseball quite well, and then, last but not least, Chevy. WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD'S GREEN EARTH IS THIS SHIT?! I want to watch baseball not some ad for GM. See this is what I was talking about. Chevy cars got more publicity than baseball did. We then got to meet the reserves for each team in bland fashion. The starters got a little more fanfare but still. They should be building up these guys to be the stars they are, not shitty GM products.

I think cutting down on the commercialism even a little bit will make the All-Star Game better for the fans. The other thing is being elected an All-Star Starter should have some more value. The fans elect the starters, players elect the reserves and they work it so just about everyone gets to play. So you aren't seeing the best vs the best. You're seeing socialism at it's finest. Everyone gets a turn! The fan vote is usually a popularity contest, but for the most part, the most popular players are the best ones. You don't see a huge national outpouring for Mark Bellhorn do you? He has a local cult following but will he ever make the All-Star Team? Nope. From a player's perspective, if they practice and get good, they will be more popular and make the game. That should be their motivation. The reserves should be elected by the players after the starters have been chosen. And those players become the bench.. And much like a regular game, you use the bench only when you have to. None of this socialism bullshit.

This guy singing the National Anthem sucked it up. I think he fucked himself. He started it a little too high. He got the high part, but not too well.

Back to my rant. Interleague play and the free agent era may have taken away a bit from from the lustre of the game. there are no more franchise players and some of those great matchups like Clemens vs. Schilling can happen during the regular season with Interleague play. So when they say "wow, you can see how Beltran fares against Clement", no big deal cuz we've probably seen it already or may see it again soon. That hurts the game.

Oh wow, a combined ad for MLB and The Fantastic 4. Christ...

So yeah, I dunno, if they want the All Star game to feel more special, maybe cut down on Interleague a little. When it first started, it was cool. We could see the Sox play the Mets in a rematch of the 86 series and all that stuff. But it's worn off. Maybe you could do 2 interleague matchups per team. A World Series rematch from the season before is always cool. And maybe something where the first place teams in AL East and NL east play eachother, and everyone plays their counterpart accordingly. I dunno. But, if you cut down on that Interleague shit, the All Star game and World Series would mean more to me.

Shit.. Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. This is another thing. These two morons are the worst. Buck I could perhaps tolerate, but McCarver, no way. Combined they are the dumb and dumber of sports casters.

Well I'm going to watch this fiasco and see what happens. I think the AL is going to take it. That seems to be everyone else's concensus too but we'll see.