I am ambivalent about the All Star Game this year.
It used to be a really fun exhibition game, a sort of summer fantasy where you could see the best players in each league face off against each other. Then interleague play diminshed that attraction. Then the managers turned it into some sort of sandlot game, where you had to get everybody into the game no matter what. So you wound up with a dreadful extra-inning tie, where both teams had run out of players. Commissioner Bud Selig decided that in order to encourage people to play to win, the winning league would get home-field advantage in the World Series. So now serious baseball fans argue about who should be on the team to give their league the best chance, when what baseball really, really needs is the original "summer fantasy" game to bring in all the marginal fans who may have heard in passing about one particular player or other and would presumably like the chance to see what all the fuss is about.
Look, serious fans already know who the best players are, and can readily follow the entire sport thanks to cable and the Internet. They don't need to be enticed to watch the All Star Game, especially since they will watch it anyway.
Baseball needs to set up the game so that everybody else will want to watch. The people who, for example, have heard about R.A. Dickey from his best-seller and might like the chance to see what this thing called an "angry knuckleball" is.
And in a roundabout way, I'm now going to take a swipe at NL Manager Tony LaRussa. He should know better. It's true that fan voting selects the eight starting position players. I have no problems with that. I also have no problem with the rule that says every team must be represented on the rosters. Because no matter how bad your team is, you're going to have *someone* who is having a great season (e.g. Jose Altuve of the Houston Astros) and deserves a spot on the team. Given that, the manager really doesn't have many options for filling out the roster. But he has absolute control over what pitcher gets the honor of starting the game.
This year, the Mets have two really outstanding stars. Dickey, arguably the best pitcher in baseball, and David Wright, arguably the best third baseman. Wright got **91** of starting when a late run of ballot box stuffing by San Francisco fans put their own Pablo Sandoval in front, and got a couple of other Giants into starting roles. OK, such things happen.
Given that everyone can see it was blatant ballot stuffing (a guy on the Giants who hasn't even appeared in a game for them this year got over 90,000 votes), why on earth would you compound the insult by picking *another* Giant (Matt Cain) to be your starting pitcher? Yes, he's having a great year. He and Dickey have very similar statistics so far. But at some point you have to ask who deserves the honor more? Cain is 27 and has already been to the All Star Game twice. No doubt he'll be there again. Dickey is 37, and has never been to the Midsummer Classic.
LaRussa has said that since the starting catcher is the Giant's Buster Posey (and he probably deserves that selection), he wants someone who has worked with him to start (i.e. his teammate Matt Cain), and not someone who throws a notoriously difficult pitch to handle.
Come on. If Posey is an All Star, he can work out with Dickey before the game and get more familiar with it. And what about anyone else who has to catch Dickey? Aren't they going to have the same difficulty? And what about the home plate umpire? If he has to call it, Posey can certainly catch it...
I really don't know what LaRussa is thinking here.... Perhaps it's a good thing he's retired...
(yes, I consider myself a Mets fan)