All-Star Silliness

This post is based on an e-mail that I wrote to my cousin (an avid baseball fan) two years ago. The ideas I expressed at the time are still applicable to the current baseball season.

As this season's MLB All-Star game was approaching I found myself growing more and more irritated with the All-Star game slogan, "This Time it Counts!" Generally, I don't care much about the All-Star game and in the past I found it silly how commentators took the selection of the All-Star rosters so seriously. I mean come on, we are talking about a selection process that either rewards a player for being popular (aka playing in a major media market), having a good half of a season, or being the best player on a very, very bad team. All-Star selection simply isn't a good indicator of whether or not a player is one of the best in baseball. It's an exhibition game/marketing tool, that is meant to showcase baseball's biggest stars and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, in years past I've felt that the only thing wrong with the All-Star game is the fact that commentators and columnists always try to make into something it's not- a meaningful game. However, this is to be expected from sports columnists who make mountains out of molehills for a living. (Kind of like what I'm doing right now.)

The problem I have now is that Bud Selig has taken the foolish thinking of the columnists/commentators and put it into practice, by having the All-Star game determine homefield advantage in the World Series. How can a game where a popularity contest determines the starters and a player from the dreadful Washington Nationals is required to be on the roster, actually have an impact on the World Series??!! Bud Selig is trying to have it both ways. He wants the All-Star game to be an exhibition showcase while simultaneously wanting it to take on post-season importance. In the process, the All-Star game and the selection process has become a confusing and awkward mess.

In my opinion, the All-Star game doesn't need to "count". Baseball's rich tradition and popularity are enough to make the All-Star Game the "mid-summer classic". However, if Selig insists on continuing with this silly gimmic, then he should at least have the common sense to modify the selection process to reflect the "This Time it Counts" significance of the game. If the game really counts, then the starting line-up shouldn't be a popularity contest and the rosters should not include sympathy selections like Christian Guzman. But, the best case scenario would be that Bud and his buddies would just put the All-Star game back the way it was before they screwed it up.