The 2022 MLB All-Star Game was the All-Gimmickry Game

I’m tired of people on social media waving the National League’s ninth straight All Gimmickry game loss in the league’s face as some sort of indicator of weakness, at least relative to the American League.

As anyone watching on TV Tuesday night could readily tell, the outcome meant nothing. Not to the players, not to Fox, the telecasting network, and certainly not to MLB.

The All-Star Game has become a mid-season version of a spring training exhibition game.

It serves one principal purpose: to show off the vast array of gimmickry which marketers at the telecasting network are capable of dreaming up and persuading players to wear.

In an almost continual stream from the pre-game on, batters, catchers, fielders and pitchers were mic’d up and encouraged to deliver banter on air in real time. At other times, actual action was lost while the talking heads promoted their own interests, such as when a Kyle Schwarber at-bat went unreported on because Tom Rinaldi was in the middle of promoting his podcast.

Plans even called for a tie to be broken by a home run derby, an occasion that would have provided the most gimmicky cap to the gimmicky night. Sadly for gimmickry, the derby wasn’t needed … an oversight the network and MLB can work on in advance of next year’s game.

I do not fault either the network or MLB for engaging in or permitting this immersion in gimmickry. TV ratings, which in 2021 were barely above an all-time low, illustrate that there plainly is a perception problem among the game’s audience. Besides, gimmickry satisfies an audience urge to “get inside” the play of the game, and as I said does so during an “exhibition.”

When the ratings for the 2022 game come in, we will see whether any of it had any impact on audience interest.

But there is a downside. The more gimmicks one introduces into the All-Star Game, the more one drives home the point that this truly is nothing more than a platform for gimmickry. It certainly is not a test of relative league strength in the way players used to view it.

One may even argue that the introduction of gimmickry, with its inherent emphasis that one is not watching a contest, is the reason for the declining ratings.

Several tangible measures prove this. First, a total of 20 pitchers took the mound — that’s more than one per half-inning. None worked more than one inning. If either side were actually trying to win, don’t you think it would have made sense for somebody to get a fourth and/or fifth out?

MLB even allowed AL manager Dusty Baker to flaunt a rule. Baker removed Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jose Lopez in the middle of an inning after facing only two batters, even though the rule requires a pitcher to face at least three batters or retire the side. It did so to enable Baker to get one more pitcher, in this case Tigers representative Gregory Soto, 30 seconds of face time.

In all, 61 players got their moment on camera at Dodger Stadium at some point Tuesday night.

That’s nice and maybe even heartwarming … for the players, for their families, and for their organizations. But it is not baseball to any serious degree. In company with all the other gimmickry, it certainly reduces the outcome to a Trivial Pursuit question.

If MLB and Fox want to stage a contest worth watching next year, they may want to start by actually staging a contest.