Albert Pujols will undoubtedly be starting at firs base for the NL in this summer's all star game.

BY JOSEPH STONE
STACHE WRITER

What’s more exciting than watching as your 401k continues to tank, bodies continue to come back from a war that was already won, or just simply gazing out on to a country that continues to slip further and further into mediocrity on a daily basis? Why it’s seeing the National League take on the American League.

It is seeing the Yankees and Red Sox top players coming together under one dugout to challenge the Phillies and Mets superstars, their rivalries put aside to fight for that highest of honors, home field advantage. YES! It’s coming! And there is not a damn thing you can do about it. The Major League Baseball All Star game is right around the corner, and as usual, I could give a fat rat’s ass.

I don’t care where this game is being played. (St. Louis, for those that do) I don’t care who wins. I don’t care who wins the BRAND NEW CAR! (Read this in smarmy game show host-ese) I could give a crap who wins the home run derby. I hope one goes foul off fan # 3’s head and the house they win burns down. I hope that Manny, Lastings Milledge and Big Papi all get picked as starters, and suck.

I hope it ends in a tie. (Oh, wait…) This contest is so bad, that it’s beyond just being a meaningless exhibition game. This “All Star” game actually detracts from its sport. “This time it counts.”

First, let me preface the heart of my rant in saying I love baseball. Love it. Okay, maybe not as much as the SABRmetric geeks, but I did discover vaginas a few years back, and since then baseball has fallen to second on the pecking order. Sue me. Anyhow, baseball is tops of all sports played outdoors in my eyes. The All Star game used to be must see TV for me.

The best taking on the best, Gooden vs. Clemens, Cal’s moon shot, even poor Ray Fosse in all the highlight films. It was spectacle simply for spectacle’s sake. The score didn’t matter. It was played for bragging rights alone. That’s what All Star baseball is and has been since they started wearing funny socks with short pants.

Throughout the regular season, we get to see the real drama unfold. You can get stomped in a game and still come back to win a series against an opponent. Every game counts, but the season is a marathon. One loss to an opponent, no matter how crushing, doesn’t end a season. The highs are mitigated by the certain lows your team is bound to hit.

Baseball is the perfect microcosm for life. Better writers have written the lyrics of metaphor that sing the praises of this wonderful sport. That all being said, the All-Star game still sucks.
First off, we let the fans vote the starters in. I don’t have a problem with fans voting for the players. We, the fan, pay their salary, so yeah, we should at least get a say in something. However, to let the great unwashed vote in who will be manning the positions when the first pitch is thrown? Come on.

I say that the fans get a vote as to who will be in the game, however, let the manager of the squad decide who starts. That is what the guy gets paid to do, and he is coming off a World Series appearance, so he might know how to write a line up card, unless he’s Joe Maddon. Sorry, AL. As for the fan vote, these are the same people who have visited VoteforManny.com and responded positively to the point that a guy who was banned from the game for over a quarter of the season may well be allowed to play in what, at least once upon a moon, was considered the “mid-summer classic”, an American institution.

This was once a game where legends were made. Manny is a hell of a player, but give me a break. He got caught cheating. There is no reason on God’s green earth he should even be considered. How could you not already have a rule in place where anybody caught using Performance Enhancing Drugs is banned from this game, I’ll never know.

Secondly, this dumbass Home Run Derby needs to go away. I hate this abomination. If there is such a clamoring for this schlock, then why don’t we go completely old school and bring back the TV show. Film it during the off season or during spring training, set it up as an elimination tourney. Shoot enough rounds to fill up the Saturdays in April, May, and June, then hold a semi final before All Star week. Then take your two finalists to one of the new canyons and let them each get 3 rounds of 10 outs. Crown yr champ and be done with it. Get Vin Scully or Bob Costas to call the finals. Sounds better than the crap we get now.

My third point is my biggest digression from MLB. Why in the hell would you take what is a glorified exhibition game and make it the deciding factor on what league gets home field advantage in what is your ultimate series of games intended to choose yr champion. What purpose does this serve? What was wrong with the old way of rotating between the leagues? WOW!!! This one counts. Why? Should Trevor Hoffman, a guy who is going to have the same seat as me for the series, have any outcome on where this championship is played? FUCK and NO. There are a few different ways you can fix this mess you got yourself into, Bud. Let me break them out for you.

1) There is a reason you play 162 games a year. That reason is so we can find out what team is the best team and we find this out by who has the best record at the end of these contests. How many wins over the course of six(6!) months can each team accrue? The teams that garner these best records are awarded what are commonly termed playoff spots and are seeded according to said records in their league playoff format. Why should this change when it comes to the interleague match up of the World Series? Why not just let the team with the best record take the home field advantage?

By not doing this, you are penalizing a team that for the entire season was better than any other team, maybe not individually matched up, but in an aggregate sample size (I hate that term, too) they were the best. Give this team the home field. By adding this, it adds to the drama. No longer can a team afford to just coast through September resting everybody just because the lapped their division. They still have to battle a team from the other circuit for most wins. The second division teams can take pride in playing spoilers to the juggernauts. Reward the teams that have run the gauntlet. Why would we let one game change the course of this? This is how I would correct the matter, but there are other ways, which now will bring me to my next possible fix which is a bit more radical.

2) If every time you play another team in baseball you play it as a series, why would you take the one time in the entire calendar you don’t do this and have this aberration affect the World Series? (I’m now tired of asking this question, so I’m sure you are tired of hearing it.) Let’s get crazy for a minute, just wild and wooly. Why don’t we turn this All Star thing into a series? Bring back a true AL/NL clash. Three games played on consecutive nights in three different parks in a geographic location where commuter flights can get the teams there in an hour or two. For example, if the NL has home field, games are held in Washington, then Baltimore, followed by Pittsburgh. Rotate each year between the AL hosting two and the senior circuit getting one, flipping it the next year. The winner of the series then gets to host the World Series.

I know, I know, I’m loopy. This goes in the face of all the history and pageantry of All Star history. How can you change the face of the game so callously? I’m not sure, ask Bud. Anyway, by going to this format, we now allow several different stadiums to house a huge game and we promote the game even more. More fans get to see these players in a series that now takes on a historical significance and lets the true star, baseball, take center stage.

There is a downside to all this in that you blow out a lot more pitchers for the first week back, there is the possibility for injuries, and you could get a sweep. My answer for these problems is as follows: Oh well, hope you got a good number 2 and your pen is straight, these guys could get hurt taking a dump, and if a team sweeps, they get home field for the next years All Star Series. (I really don’t like that name. We need something titanic. Something like the Legends Series. It’s pretty pompous, but I think it’s catchy. All Star Classic, maybe?) This takes baseball’s All Star event and makes it the crown jewel of all American sports. Enough said on that point.

3) I know that all major sports have football envy. The NFL has somehow become the most watched league in the country. By watering down its competition, changing its rules to two hand touch, and putting an ad on everything, the NFL has done the one thing that even thirty years ago seemed impossible. It has unseated baseball as the national pastime. This is truly sad, but I’ll save my opinion on that for another day. Since all things sport are fueled by money, why keep the regular season at 162 games?

Cut the season back to 154 or less and blow the playoffs up to 16 teams. The leagues can be re-aligned with four divisions, put Boston in one league and the Yankees in the other, that way you can have those two play each other in the Series each year. All the Massholes and douche bag Yankees fans can go these games, spend money like drunken sailors, and I can sit at home and root for the meteor.

Any of these suggestions would be better that what we are currently forced to deal with in this All Star game that decides who gets home field in the Series. I think it’s the worst cop out in sports, in at least the ones that directly deal with the game. Let’s just let all the other dirty little secrets in the closet for now. In all honesty, the All Star game never needed fixed. It was a great game that let you see what the best of each league could do when stacked up against the best from the other league.

Why we felt this had to be improved upon is beyond my small brain to comprehend. I guess sometimes you have to fix something that ain’t broke. And don’t throw that tie game at me, because there has been more than one tie in All Star history. With a slight tweak of substitution rules for pitchers, Viola, all better. Anyway, if it’s all about the money, pick one of the three suggestions and run with it. (I’m looking at you, Bud) If it isn’t, if it truly is about love of the game, put the game back to how it was, a simple exhibition of the top players baseball has to offer.

Let the spectacle that is All Star baseball shine, and take us back to our childhoods, even if only for a fleeting moment. This game doesn’t need any heightened stakes. Like Paul said to John, just Let it Be.