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Friday, July 08, 2005

The All Star Game: A Joke?

Well, it's that time of year again: the All Star Game is just a few days away. I could sit here and talk about how Hideki Matsui got snubbed by the players and the voters on the last man vote. I could say how Scott Podsednik doesn't belong anywhere near Detroit during the All Star Game. I could tell you a lot of things about how some players got snubbed and about how some All Stars shouldn't be playing. But I'm not going to. Why, you ask? Because the MLB has managed to turn the All Star Game into a big joke.


The All Star Game will be played in Detroit this year.

What the All Star Game should be is a celebration of the game; a place to see a friendly game between the best of the best in the MLB. However, through a few bad gimmicks, the game has become very uninteresting. First of all, the rule about how each team has to have at least one representative is proof, if there isn't enough, that the game has become purely about making money for the MLB. They want every MLB city to have a reason to watch the game and buy hats, memorabilia, etc. If it's supposed to be a game consisting of the best of the best, don't have worse players play just for the sake of each team being represented.And, of course, you can't go without mentioning the fact that "this time, it counts." This was probably the worst way possible that the MLB could've gone about trying to get better ratings for the game: make it have playoff implications. Now, just to get more people to watch what, in my opinion, is a rather boring game, they say whoever wins the All Star Game gets homefield advantage for the World Series. This game is supposed to be a friendly exhibition for the fans to see, and now it has an effect on the World Series? Come on.

The fact is that the All Star Game is supposed to be purely for the fans' enjoyment. In my opinion, and I'm sure in the opinion of many others, the game has become not that enjoyable to watch. However, that doesn't mean that they need to make these silly changes to attract more viewers. Sure, some changes could be made. I think if they changed it from being AL vs. NL to U.S. vs. World (like what the NHL has), the game might be slightly more interesting to watch. However, just because changes need to be made doesn't give the MLB the right to make the gimmicks of an exhibition game make the game itself worse or affect other aspects of baseball.
-Adam

I'd like to hear your comments!

1 Comments:

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3:32 AM

 

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