The Major League Baseball All-Star Game has lost its luster.Personally, I haven't watched it since 2003. Despite a good year last year, recent trends show that the game is not the draw that it used to be.
But why?
It's hard to put a finger on an exact reason, but I am a firm believer in the ol' college try. Here are five reasons why I believe the All-Star Game is not what it used to be.
- Interleague Play makes the best players in both leagues available to fans in every city. For example, interleague play brought Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants to Seattle last year, a city that had never hosted the team or the slugger.
- The Yankees, Mets and Red Sox play every night. As teams with enormous budgets continue to stockpile talent, marketing the All-Star game as an unusual display of talent almost seems ridiculous. Thank goodness the small market teams get to keep the stars a few years before free agency.
- Cable television allows any person in any city to follow the exploits of any player or team in any other city. There was a time when you'd have to dig through the sports page to find news and stats about your favorite player, as I once did when Will Clark signed with the Texas Rangers. Between MLB Extra Innings and MLB.tv, though, there is no such thing as an out of market game anymore.
- Free Agency means you'll get a chance to see your favorite player eventually, and he may even wind up on your team. Just be patient. Kenny Lofton has played on 11 teams in his career, including at least one in every Major League division. Even Alex Rodriguez, arguably the best player in all of baseball, has seen his share of the country -- he's played on both coasts, with a stop in the middle.
- Despite what Bud Selig would have you believe, there's not much at stake. Players love to go out and have a good time, chum it up with other superstars and maybe get some footage on their new camcorder (I always get a kick out of that). But once the game rolls around, they're just trying not to make an idiot of themselves. The "winner gets home field advantage" in the World Series ploy is dumb, because only two teams make the World Series anyway. Do you think Derek Jeter will be putting out extra effort just so the Red Sox will have an edge in October? I don't think so.
So what can be done to remedy the boredom? Interleague play, big budget teams, cable television and free agency aren't going anywhere. But #5 gives us a little wiggle room, and in a future post I'll address suggestions for fixing the All-Star Game.
10 comments:
This is your favorite editor again.
I think you mean "lost its luster", rather than "loster".
Looking forward to your solutions.
Good stuff... and I think a lot of it has to do with the fan voting too, at least for me. I like the fans voting, but I'd like to see some guys that aren't on the Tigers, Red Sox, or Yankees starting... I guess I'm kind of contradicting myself by saying I like fan voting but that's what makes it lose some luster for me, but so be it.
Agreed on all points. I am interested to hear your ideas for fixing it. I am not sure that it is possible sans going back to the stone age.
The World Series resting on it needs to be thrown out the door as well. Getting ideas from Fox is absolutely absurd. By "mattering" it completely reduces the festive atmosphere. It also completely underestimates the intelligence of the average sports fan (a normal idea under Selig). He seems to try to co-opt every other idea from the NFL. Does the NFL make the Pro Bowl matter?
It should go back to what it used to be an excuse for the league to make money and for the players to have a jolly.
Two points: first, Bonds and the Giants played in Seattle in 2001. I know, because I was at this game.
Second, I disagree that the All-Star game needs fixing. It's a freaking exhibition game, and the only real point is to try and bring the best/most well-known players in the game together for a few hours so we can watch them play a basically meaningless game. I actually enjoy the fact that home field advantage in the WS rests on the outcome of the game, because even if it won't end up mattering to most of the players on either team, it will to a few. Plus, at this point in the season a good majority of the players on both teams can at least dream about making the World Series, so they should care a bit.
Sportszilla, I stand corrected. But the point remains that interleague play makes catching a glimpse of superstars in the other league a reality.
And as far as the nature of the game, you're right, it is an exhibition game. But my point is that it's an exhibition game that people have lost interest in, and I was trying to explain why. I think, from a marketing standpoint, anything that people are less interested in than they used to be needs fixing. And from a fan's standpoint, that's exactly what I'm craving.
I agree with you Kevin. Why give home field advantage to the winner of the all-star game? So you bust your tail for 162 games, have the best record, get home field for the playoffs until the World Series because some guys on your All Star team didn't have any incentive and your league lost? That doesn't make any sense.
ncaabasketballscores.blogspot.com
Sportszilla, first you say it is meaningless (and you like it that way), then you say that you like the fact that it decides HFA for the WS. Isn't that meaningful?
Yea I think the fan vote makes it meaningless because you have fans voting in Pudge and Polacito Polanco and etc. to start when they definitely don't deserve it.
As long as the fans decide this and have the big markets voting for guys who don't deserve it its hard to take it seriously and due to such it should not count for home field advantage in the WS.
One of the two needs to change.
HFA didn't matter much to the Cardinals last year. It didn't matter much to the Yankees in '03 either, except that we became the hosts of the Florida Marlin's 2nd WS party immediately following Game 6's conclusion.
HFA is a nice designation to have, but something better could be put on the line. Somewhere between 1971 and now, the ASG stopped meaning as much for the players involved. Maybe it's the guaranteed money from huge contracts for most of the participants. I don't think the money was as big back then and the players played hard for an extra big payday to the winner.
Post a Comment