MLB All-Star Game: Five Reasons It’s Overrated
As the hoopla for Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game begins, the game itself has lost its fastball.
The 87th MLB All-Star Game is Tuesday night at San Diego’s beautiful Petco Park.
For some of you, it is a chance to watch the best players in baseball take on each other with the winning league securing home field advantage for this year’s World Series. Remember, the game counts!
Sorry, as someone who watches baseball five or six days a week, color me unimpressed with today’s version of the Midsummer Classic. The fault has zero to do with the city of San Diego or the quality of play. Today’s players are among the best. You would think watching Mike Trout face Jake Arrieta would be thrilling. David Ortiz, the retiring Boston Red Sox legend, will surely add another priceless memory. Madison Bumgarner might pitch. A great time will be had by all, right?
Except for the NBA’s All-Star Weekend, the quality of the game is better than the other all-star get-togethers. The last time they played defense in the NHL game, artificial ice had yet been invented. The NFL’s Pro Bowl is so exciting that most of the league goes out of its way to skip it. At least with baseball, we get a decent game. That has to count for something.
Or does it?
Before you leave my lawn, let me say this. Compared to what this game used to mean, today’s All-Star bashes are overrated affairs that hearken back to days gone by. The players like the bonuses, but this mish-mash of a meaningful exhibition game falls short.
Here are five reasons why.
Next: Let the Starters Pitch
STARTING PITCHING
San Diego is hosting its third All-Star Game this year. When it hosted its first in 1977, both teams used a combined total of 11 pitchers. Two years ago at Target Field, the National League itself used 10 in eight innings. The American League used 11 in nine frames.
Back in the 1977 Classic Jim Palmer—the AL starter—and Vida Blue for the NL faced 14 batters each. Palmer was pulled in the third as Blue went the full three. Although you will never see a starter today face that many hitters, yanking a starter after an inning or inning-plus is a joke. They prepare as if they are throwing a regular game. Set a hard pitch count if needed, but why waste a start to retire the side in order and sit?
In 2014, the NL trotted out their closers from the fifth inning on. The AL waited until two outs in the sixth. Who wants to watch the best hitters in the game look foolish over the last five innings?
No one is suggesting starters get strained, but if each league’s best three starters share the first five innings, you get a better product. Besides, you need to save pitchers in case the game runs into extra innings.
Next: Separate Leagues No More
INTERLEAGUE
There was a time when the only time you saw players from both leagues face-off against each other was during the All-Star Game and World Series. It was a huge deal to see how Willie Mays or Mike Schmidt fared against Whitey Ford or Roger Clemens.
Today, and most every day this season and for the foreseeable future, there is an interleague game. We see the New York Yankees and Mets play six times a year. Would Tom Seaver strike out Thurman Munson if given the chance? We can watch Carlos Beltran face Noah Syndergaard now in the middle of May.
The intrigue of this once-a-year clash of titans is gone. Before 1996, we would only get a glimpse of the Baltimore Orioles ace Chris Tillman against Washington Nationals slugger Bryce Harper once a year on national television. Now, it is a meaningful game for the locals.
Sure, not every team plays against each other every year. For the West Coast teams, it is fun to dig in against their East Coast counterparts, but more now is made when the Los Angeles Dodgers visit Yankee Stadium or when the Red Sox play the San Francisco Giants.
Those moments making the summer’s crown jewel unique are gone.
Next: This Time It Counts!
WORLD SERIES HOME FIELD
After a series of players feigning injuries to skip the game, and the embarrassing tie in 2002—all the pitchers were used—Major League Baseball used what was a pure exhibition to decide home field advantage in the World Series.
For years, the two leagues alternated where the Fall Classic started. After a while, they split the DH rule to whatever league hosted a game. We can argue over whether who hosted Game 7 should be the team with the best record, but switching yearly between leagues worked. So why try to fix something that was not broken?
Imagine if one league hosted the Series for a decade or more. Well, under the new rule, the NL would have had the honor from 1972-1982 and the AL from 1997-2009.
If you need a gimmick to spark interest in an event, maybe instead you should examine the event. To make something as important as who hosts the deciding game of a championship based on what happens in an exhibition game in July is a joke. No, we do not need to have another Pete Rose bowling over Ray Fosse—as what happened in 1970—to end a game, but MLB took an unflattering moment and turned it into a perpetual one.
If the players need a gimmick, then why should we care?
Next: A Glut of Baseball
MLB.TV AND CABLE
Back in the heyday of the All-Star Game, this might have been the only chance to see the best players from markets that were never on television. If you did not have cable in the 1970s or 80s, you saw one game on NBC on Saturday and one on ABC Monday nights. You might get a local game once a week. If you had cable, you could watch the Atlanta Braves every night.
Today, FOX, TBS, ESPN and MLB Network telecast a minimum of six games a week. Your local team has a game on cable every night and the Extra Innings package offers every out-of-market game. MLB.tv has every out-of-market game live and in-market games the next day on 400 different devices.
In 1980, if you wanted to follow George Brett’s quest for .400 from Phoenix, you were stuck with NBC or ABC. Today, if you love Stephen Strasburg and live in Kalamazoo, you can watch every start on MASN.
For the players we want to see, either on our favorite or fantasy teams, we can watch every game and on demand. Stories of Roberto Clemente’s arm or Sandy Koufax’s fastball are no longer the domain of newspapers and magazines. We can see a Matt Harvey struggle about a minute after the fact.
Watching players who you never saw play was one of the big highlights of All-Star Games past. Today, we can see and read about any player at any time. We know what Clayton Kershaw will throw to Mike Trout with a full count and talk about it later on social media.
Again, what made the game unique is gone.
Next: Back, Back, Back!
HOME RUN DERBY
Home runs are sexy. There is something about Mark McGwire clearing the parking garage at Fenway Park or Josh Hamilton hitting one completely out of Yankee Stadium. Even with ESPN’s Chris Berman constantly repeating the word “back” as if he was a broken record, the joy of a local kid like Todd Frazier winning the Home Run Derby makes for a great story.
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It should not, however, overshadow the game itself. In recent years, that is what has happened. We have allowed people to be more interested in a glorified batting practice than the game itself. The players are more interested in the Derby and younger fans eat it up.
How did MLB let the main attraction become the sideshow?
Between emphasizing the game as an exhibition but putting value on the end, the All-Star Game has become an afterthought for the players. Grab an at-bat or toss the inning, shower, then talk to reporters. Players sit on the ground in awe during the Derby, relaxing with friends and family. How wonderful for the sport. It really is.
In making the Derby the show—the event draws the best under-50 demographics for baseball on television aside from the World Series—it makes the game itself irrelevant for fans and players alike.
Next: Who Should Be the AL Starting Pitcher?
We still get a magic moment or two, like Torii Hunter robbing Barry Bonds, then Bonds carrying Hunter or MLB’s goodbye to Derek Jeter at Citi Field, but for the most part we get a game by players who would rather be on vacation. Sad.