Thoughts on the All-Star Game

Well, well, well. The NL finally manages an all-star game win. What does it mean? Pretty much nothing considering that the World Series has not gone past 6 games for the past 8 years. In fact, in the past 30 years, the World Series has gone to 7 games only 8 times (27%). For those of you who don't like that the All-Star game actually means something, just wait for the outrage after the first time that it decides where a 7th game of a World Series is held.

Anyway, I disgress.

Was anybody else put off by that staged "meeting of the all-stars" in the middle of the field? At first I was thinking, "this is a cool gesture by major league baseball to have the baseball all-stars go and shake the hands of the People's All-Stars", but then it turned into this awkward mash-up and I was left with a sour taste in my mouth. The best camera shot was Ichiro and Matt Thornton just standing there not knowing what to do, seemingly suppressing laughter at the absurdity of the whole thing.

I did enjoy that the players actually seemed to care about the game, particularly the members of the National League squad. Ryan Braun made an excellent diving catch (where'd he learn to play defense?) and Marlon Byrd almost made a diving catch and made an excellent play on David Ortiz from the outfield. I'm not sure you want your all-star diving around if you're the Brewers, but hey, it seemed important to the players and that's what I like to see. Afterall, what's the point of mid-season exhibition game?

More than once I heard someone from the ESPN crew comment that "player x has had a rough start to this season." Should anybody who's had a rough start to the year be on the all-star team? Omar Infante, Yadier Molina, some of the selections just don't make sense. Biggest snub of the year? Adam Dunn.

I loved seeing the bevy of excellent pitchers in the game. I'm not generally a fan of low-scoring games, but almost every pitcher besides Hughes and Thornton showed why they deserved to be All-Stars. Overall, I thought that the Angels did a good job hosting. The fans in Anaheim need to straighten up, I understand you may not like the Yankees, but give the guys a break, they just had to deaths in the "family" in the past week. Show some love!