If you have been poking around the blogosphere or checking out your local sports columnist to see what they’ve had to say about the All-Star Game, you’ll note that almost universally, they claim the game would be better if it didn’t count. Why? They say because it’s unfair. It allows people that won’t even compete in the World Series have a say in who gets home field advantage, and it may promote injury if, God forbid, the players in the game actually put forth and effort.
Now seriously, do you think it’s any more or less fair to base it on a team’s record over the course of the season? A team plays 18 games across league lines against a grand total of 5 teams. I think it’s kind of hard to say whether or not one team for a given league is better than a team from the other league until they play each other for a while, like in the World Series.
As for this business about players not involved in the World Series getting to aid in deciding who will get home field advantage? Last I checked, the Red Sox get to pound the Orioles about 20 times a year (as many times, if not more, than they play the entire National League). Some of those times are in September, when the late season call ups get perhaps their only shots in the Major Leagues. Don’t they have a say in who get’s homefield as well, playing the sacrificial lambs at the feet of the Red Sox? I am much more comfortable with the best players from each league involved in this process than some triple A call ups.
As for the injury thing, well, yeah. They happen. They also happen in rec softball. At Real Job Inc, every year for the past three, someone has broke a bone so bad playing softball that it required surgery. I can’t remember the last time such an injury happened in the All-Star Game, but if it did, I would feel much more comfortable if they were actually playing for something than if they weren’t.
I know I’m in the minority and will probably be shouted down but if anything, I strive to be different here at the Victoria Times. Or something.
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