Apple Pie
I watched a little of the Home Run Derby last night as I was eating dinner at Chili's (alone *cries*), and I think that this once cute sidebar to Baseball's All-Star Game has really fallen into being a real bore.
The biggest problem was that there was no star power. Now I haven't been following baseball as much this year as usual, but I still have a pretty good idea who the big sluggers are, and - they weren't there. Sure, there was Pudge Rodriguez, the hometown guy there in Detroit, and the longest playing guy in the exhibition, but where was Sammy Sosa? Has getting off of steroids finally showed that he's not a natural homerun hitter?
A few years ago, you would have seen Sammy, and Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire bashing the ball in this competition, and it was worth watching. This year they tried to manipulate the competition to have each player from a different country. Nice gesture, but it just showed that the big names bowed out. There was also something about some gold baseball that they would try to hit out of the park, trying to avoid making the last out. I didn't understand what it meant, and I don't think anyone else did.
They try to make this more interesting by having them play for people who will win a house if their player wins the competition, so the commentators, who are struggling to find enough to talk about during the long competition, are talking to these regular folks as they root on the unknown players. We at home, not winning a house for watching this, don't care.
This competition goes on for two and a half hours. About the length of a real game. It's way too long. And to think last year, when the game was in Houston I waited outside the stadium watching the balls sail out of the ballpark. Last night, I didn't even watch the end of it.
As for tonight's game, the All-Star Game, well, I'll probably catch a little of it, but it's still a game that means just a little more that the Basketball All-Star game, and I still think it's stupid that they make home field advantage for the World Series contingent on this. Why would the Tampa Bay player even care? He won't be going to the World Series.
Baseball's a crazy game.
The biggest problem was that there was no star power. Now I haven't been following baseball as much this year as usual, but I still have a pretty good idea who the big sluggers are, and - they weren't there. Sure, there was Pudge Rodriguez, the hometown guy there in Detroit, and the longest playing guy in the exhibition, but where was Sammy Sosa? Has getting off of steroids finally showed that he's not a natural homerun hitter?
A few years ago, you would have seen Sammy, and Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire bashing the ball in this competition, and it was worth watching. This year they tried to manipulate the competition to have each player from a different country. Nice gesture, but it just showed that the big names bowed out. There was also something about some gold baseball that they would try to hit out of the park, trying to avoid making the last out. I didn't understand what it meant, and I don't think anyone else did.
They try to make this more interesting by having them play for people who will win a house if their player wins the competition, so the commentators, who are struggling to find enough to talk about during the long competition, are talking to these regular folks as they root on the unknown players. We at home, not winning a house for watching this, don't care.
This competition goes on for two and a half hours. About the length of a real game. It's way too long. And to think last year, when the game was in Houston I waited outside the stadium watching the balls sail out of the ballpark. Last night, I didn't even watch the end of it.
As for tonight's game, the All-Star Game, well, I'll probably catch a little of it, but it's still a game that means just a little more that the Basketball All-Star game, and I still think it's stupid that they make home field advantage for the World Series contingent on this. Why would the Tampa Bay player even care? He won't be going to the World Series.
Baseball's a crazy game.