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The Midsummer Clusterf...., I Mean Classic

In his quixotic, to be kind, and demented, to be accurate, quest to make the All-Star Game something more than a corporate retreat for ballplayers, Bud Selig has reached a milestone of sorts. The written and unwritten rules governing the selection of the 417 players who will make up the American and National League teams have become so complex no one will know who's in the damn game until about the fourth inning.

Between the vote-in, the "starting pitchers who pitch the Sunday before can't be on the team," the injury replacements, the "I'm thinking about being injured" guys who are as bored with the All-Star game as myself but have bonus clauses for making the team, and the time Omar Infante saved Charlie Manuel's life that we didn't hear about (that's gotta be why HE's on the National League squad), the All-Star rosters have become unfathomable. Sixty-eight All-Stars will be in uniform, and as many a dozen more will be All-Stars in absentia. Pregame introductions will start promptly at 9 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time in Anaheim, so as not to push back the scheduled 5:28 p.m. PDT start.

And by about 10 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, two things will have happened. The American League will have won the game, and the game itself will again be a victim of its own cross-purposes. The All-Star Game, lest we forget, was invented as a marketing device, and that's how it's always worked best. Give the game's best players, and some guys having good half-seasons, a moment under the lights to promote themselves and their sport.

The idea that the game must have consequences and be a serious competition where losing sucks, is, of course, Selig's invention. And if he'd gone all the way, it might work. Limit the rosters to 25 men. Let the managers use those men as they see fit. If, say, Jon Lester or Ubaldo Jimenez is working on a no-hitter after three innings, let's see how that sorts out. If the Senators or Royals don't HAVE an All-Star on the team, they should practice harder next spring training.

But to say, "this game counts, but make sure everybody gets in it, and make we sure have enough players for a 19-inning game" is an exercise doomed to failure. You cannot conduct a game in which the rules of normal no-holds-barred competition are superimposed on the personnel practices of tee ball. You cannot make fans care about the outcome of a game in which the only thing they know going in is that the players who take the field for the first inning will be in the showers by the fifth.

(Don't throw ratings at me. Ratings for ALL sports events have gone way up in 2010. TV sports are the only beneficiaries of the recession).

They ought to call the game the All-Star Oxymoron. You can't have a meaningful exhibition game. Period. Full stop.

posted by Michael Gee @ 6:54 AM