July 15, 2008
Is This Break Necessary?
By Jeff NeumanThere are two and only two days on the calendar when no games are scheduled in big-league baseball, football, basketball or hockey: the day before and the day after baseball's All-Star Game.
Maybe it ought to be three.
The All-Star Game has become a tired spectacle, a corporate cash-grab, a massive irrelevance. Fewer American households watched the game last year than forty years ago, despite a 50% increase in U.S. population in that time.
The All-Star Game has become an excuse for its peripheral events, baseball's one opportunity to schmooze its sponsors and clients in Super Bowl fashion. Unlike the World Series, it takes place in a predetermined location, allowing the corporate jet set to make plans and schedule its taxpayer-subsidized gatherings.
The fan voting – excuse me, the Monster 2008 All-Star Game Online Ballot at MLB.com – provides fodder for commentators who are shocked that a popularity contest doesn't always select the worthiest candidates. Those complaints about the starting lineups – announced on the 2008 All-Star Game Selection Show presented by Chevrolet – serve the promo machine beautifully, and fuel the Monster 2008 All-Star Final Vote to select the last player for each team. (No doubt someone is generating a profit on every click.)
The interactive off-site exhibition – the DHL All-Star Fan Fest – is apparently a must-see if you've purchased your seats as part of the home team's season-ticket offering, since you are required to buy two Fan Fest admissions for every All-Star ticket purchased. In an effort to reach out to the youth of America, children are admitted free – if they happen to be under two years of age. Otherwise, it's $25.00 for the kiddies, on top of the cost of tickets to All-Star Sunday (featuring the XM Satellite Radio All-Star Futures Game and the Taco Bell All-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball Game), the Gatorade All-Star Workout Day on Monday that includes the State Farm Home Run Derby, and of course the game on Tuesday night (Red Carpet Show presented by Chevrolet, coverage on MLB.com presented by Fruit of the Loom, and don't forget the Monster All-Star Game 2008 MVP Vote on MLB.com for the Ted Williams Most Valuable Player Award presented by Chevrolet).
Nascar's got nothing on these guys.
None of this would matter if the game were worthwhile. It isn't.
Once upon a time, the All-Star Game was our one chance to see all the game's best players in a short span of time. Today, in a world of SportsCenter and YouTube and baseball's Extra Innings Package and MLB.TV, we can see the game's best every night if we want to. There's no novelty left to wear off.
League identity has broken down as well. When I first followed baseball, there were only a few specific periods in which interleague trades could be made; today, players move freely from league to league through trades, free agency, and waiver moves. Interleague play in the regular season also reduces the significance of the AL-NL division, as does the common umpiring pool that serves all games.
(Incidentally, while I'm generally among the purest of purists, I'm not bothered by the notion of the All-Star Game deciding home-field advantage in the World Series. It's a gimmick, but it's not as though this system replaced a more sensible, merit-based method. Giving that extra home game to the All-Star winner is no worse than alternating leagues.)
The three most memorable All-Star moments in the last twenty years were, undoubtedly, Ted Williams's appearance at the 1999 game in Boston, the tie-game debacle in Milwaukee in 2002, and John Kruk's comical plate appearance against Randy Johnson in 1993. None of the three exactly reflect the game as a showcase for baseball's best.
The same can be said of the Home Run Derby on Monday night. What was fun once has become, like its close cousin the NBA Slam-Dunk Competition, an exercise in tedium through repetition and abdication. The game's best hitters want nothing to do with it: of the eight players participating this year, only three rank among the top 100 active home-run hitters.
Finally, there's the nightmare of managing the game. In general, once players advance beyond tee-ball, it's accepted that some of those who show up for a game may have to sit it out. Not so at baseball's Midsummer Classic. It was bad enough to try to get everybody into the game when there were 30-man rosters. Now, thanks to the specter of that tie in Milwaukee, there are 32 men on each team. Terry Francona and Clint Hurdle will need advanced Excel training just to maintain a lineup through the game.
I've got no illusions that anything is going to change about the bloated event the All-Star Game has become. There's still something nice about seeing all the game's best players stand along the foul lines to receive their measure of applause. Unfortunately, it's all downhill from there.
