|
July
11, 2006 - Why I Love the MLB All-Star Game
All-Star
games in any sport don’t really mean much these days,
and I’d be lying if I said I cared much about them.
Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game, however, is the
exception to the norm. Even though the All-Star Game has lost
a lot of its appeal over the years, the Midsummer Classic
is something for which I will always tune in, if it’s
at all possible. Granted, gone are the days of Pete Rose slamming
into Ray Fosse at home plate and other cutthroat plays you’d
only see in a regular or postseason game by today’s
standards, but I can assure you there’s still a little
bit of magic left in the MLB All-Star Game. Allow me to first
detail the all-star games of the other three major sports
in this country, and why they aren’t worth your while,
unlike baseball’s midseason showcase of stars.
Why
yes, Tom, even though you've already won 8
Super Bowls, obviously I want to watch you
play in yet another game that has no implications whatsoever.
|
The
NFL’s Pro Bowl is at the end of the season, is always
in Hawaii, and the players from the winning team get an extra
$50,000 or some such amount of money added to their salary.
Big deal. I already had to watch some team I hate win the
Super Bowl, and now I get to see half of that team’s
roster plus a bunch of other players I don’t like get
free trips to Hawaii and “play” an exhibition
game, while all my favorites that should be there either got
injured during the season or snubbed in the voting? And all
the while I have to listen to the horrible color commentary
of Joe Theismann? The NFL should pay me to watch
the Pro Bowl. There’s not really much that can be done
to make this game mean anything—I understand that football
is an absolutely grueling sport, so I wouldn’t dream
of asking the NFL to move the Pro Bowl to the middle of the
season or anything like that. Plus, the Super Bowl is always
in a predetermined location as it is, so you couldn’t
really put home-field advantage up for grabs, as there is
none in the first place (typically). The Pro Bowl is merely
an exhibition, and it always will be until the athletes competing
in the game play with the same punishing and hard-nosed passion
they would in any regular season game. But think about it—they’ve
already played a full regular season, plus more games for
playoff teams. If I was in their situation, I suppose I probably
wouldn’t risk injury in a game that didn’t matter.
I will reluctantly admit they probably deserve a break. But
without real competition, I just can’t get excited about
the Pro Bowl.
LeBron
James or fried catfish? Come on, you know which one
you want.... |
The
NBA All-Star Game is in the middle of the season, but it doesn’t
count for anything, and the game typically breaks down into
a session of the defenses standing around with proverbial
fingers in butts while the opposing conferences’ offenses
saunter around and see if they can shoot 800 three pointers
before time expires. Exciting to some, I’m sure, but
not to me and pretty much everybody else I know. Around here
people get more excited about my church’s annual fish
supper that usually takes place around the same time than
they do the NBA All-Star Game. And who can blame them? Delicious
fish versus horrendously overpaid athletes more concerned
about contracts and endorsement deals than championships?
Do you really have to think about it? I really don’t
have much else to say about that—these days I’m
so disconnected from the NBA that I honestly don’t know
what else to say without making more jokes about the players
making too much money.
The
NHL? Well, first I better make sure the NHL still exists…and
it does. Okay. I like hockey. I really do. But man, I can’t
stand watching it. The playoffs I usually try to tune in to,
if only for a few moments. But overall, it seems like a sport
I would enjoy more if I was actually watching it in the arena.
As far as the All-Star game goes, I view it as something of
an amalgamation of the problems of the Pro Bowl and NBA All-Star
Game. Like football, hockey is a grueling sport, so the players
probably don’t want to give it their all and get the
crap beaten out of themselves for an exhibition. This, in
turn, leads to a lot of goalfests with no real defense, similar
to the NBA’s conundrum. I’ve seen some mammoth
NHL All-Star Game scores in the past, and that’s just
not the kind of game hockey is supposed to be. On top of that,
the floundering NHL has taken on some different formats for
their all-star game in recent memory, such as the NHL All-Stars
versus the World All-Stars and things of this nature. In my
opinion, if it’s going to be called the NHL All-Star
Game, it should always be one conference against the other,
otherwise you limit yourself to only one team concocted from
the entire NHL talent pool, who will just end up losing to
a bunch of people nobody has heard of playing on the world
team. Anyhow, hockey all-star games suck. Movin’ right
along.
Now,
you must understand I’m not as big of a hockey or basketball
fan as I am a football and baseball fan, so it probably makes
a lot of sense that I don’t give two shits about their
all-star games. However, I would say I’m probably equally
passionate about football and baseball, and I still don’t
give two shits about the Pro Bowl, so baseball must be doing
something right.
Anyone
else remember the infamous "tie" of 2002?
Nice move, Bud. |
First
of all, Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game counts
for something—the winning league gets home-field advantage
in the World Series. And while many (myself included) believe
home-field advantage should simply be determined by which
team has the best record or some other simple means, you have
to admit that this method does, in fact, add a little excitement
to the All-Star game. Without this stipulation, it could very
well fall into the same funk as the rest. Frankly, it was
in that funk before they started counting it. Remember that
one All-Star Game that ended in a tie? Give me a
break. Though it was an exhibition, such malaise simply isn’t
tolerated by a diehard fan like me. And home-field advantage
is important in the World Series. The team with home-field
advantage has won 8 of the last 10 World Series or something
ridiculous like that. So I’d say there is some degree
of importance in trying to secure home-field advantage for
your league, especially if you’re on a team that might
be going to the World Series.
The
highlighted winners all had home-field advantage. Of
course it didn't really matter at all in some of these
series (way to go, St. Louis), but it's still a telling
statistic, is it not? |
Fortunately,
the MLB All-Star Game has some more good stuff going for it.
In all honesty these are all things that any given person
could probably find in the rest of the all-star games, as
well. But in my mind, they particularly stand out in the MLB
All-Star Game. For example, each player wears his team’s
full uniform. Not just the hat or anything like that—the
whole uniform. Basketball sometimes does this, but they also
frequently will wear Eastern and Western Conference uniforms,
which just isn’t as cool. NFL players wear their team’s
helmet, but a standard AFC or NFC jersey. And hockey…well,
I don’t know about hockey. Anyway, as far as I can see,
allowing MLB players to wear their team’s uniform gives
them the opportunity to properly represent their team while
maintaining their individuality as a superstar among the rest
of the all-stars. Granted, individual uniforms in the other
sports might become confusing in that there is a lot more
activity and movement and mishmashing in those games than
there is in baseball, but it is still an aspect of the MLB
All-Star Game that, in my opinion, makes it superior to the
others.
On
top of that, and I hate to admit it, but the fact that the
American League wins every year actually helps the
All-Star Game. Because every year I’m more inclined
to tune in and see if the National League can finally pull
it out. I once equated the American League to a handsome,
muscular brute who is dumb as a brick but hits a truckload
of home runs and gets the girl all the time, while the National
League is the thoughtful, sensitive, creative guy who has
to rely on his wits and intellect to come out on top and rarely
gets the girl. Well sir, I’m still watching and waiting
for the National League to get the girl. I know he can—I
know it’s in him! And he’ll get it figured out
one of these days.
Nothing
could stand in their way for 10 or 11 glorious months
before Savage got pissed because he thought Hogan wanted
Miss Elizabeth. This is what I'm talking about, folks--EPIC
team-ups. |
Lastly,
and again, this may be true of all all-star games in any sport,
but in baseball in particular it stands out to me. This is
the part that makes me the nerdiest sports fan ever, but I
view the All-Star Game in the same way I look at major characters
in any given story or situation when they join forces to take
on all comers. The National League All-Stars are like the
Justice League of America teaming up to fight the Legion of
Doom (American League). Or it’s like the Marvel Super
Heroes teaming up to fight Onslaught or something like that.
Or, take a look at pro wrestling. You know you were geeking
out when Hulk Hogan and “Macho Man” Randy Savage—two
men who were already world-renowned, accomplished WWF superstars
individually—actually joined forces and formed
the Mega Powers. Even the combined might of Andre the Giant
and “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase couldn’t
stand up to them. There was literally nothing that could stop
them (until Savage got jealous and thought Hogan was after
his woman, but I digress). And it was awesome. Or,
look at the early years of the WWF Survivor Series, in which
teams of 4 or 5 good guys would take on teams of 4 or 5 bad
guys they were feuding with—same concept. In movies,
any film with an oversized ensemble cast will generally amount
to the same feeling. Or any musical supergroup like the Damn
Yankees or the Highwaymen. I don’t know about you, but
when you take a bunch of powerful/talented individuals (good
or bad) and put them together on the same team to create a
nigh-invincible conglomerate, it just gives me goosebumps.
And what is even more spectacular is when two or more of these
conglomerates face off against each other in sport or combat.
That’s what the All-Star Game is to me. And while baseball
players can’t level buildings or engage in tag-team
wrestling (or could they?) in their quest to obtain home-field
advantage, and while it doesn’t necessarily have the
ferocity and urgency of past All-Star games, you know there
is a battle of epic proportions going on.
This
is approximately how my mind works when I watch the
All-Star Game. |
And
that’s why I love Major League Baseball’s All-Star
Game.
|
