Kleeman's Last Word

Why Baseball Fails to Respect All-Star Tradition

It's a tired argument now: Bud Selig is screwing up the All-Star Game by allowing it to decide home field advantage in the World Series. This tired argument should not be put to bed.

Eight sluggers—Lance Berkman, Josh Hamilton, Vladimir Guerrero, Grady Sizemore, Dan Uggla, Chase Utley, Evan Longoria, Ryan Braun, and Justin Morneau—will compete in the 22nd Home Run Derby tonight at Yankee Stadium.

A pair of squads packed with baseball's best and most popular will then hit the field tomorrow for the league's 79th All-Star Game.

Selig decided almost five years ago that this supposedly meaningless "Midsummer Classic" should mean something. He did it after the National League and American League finished the 2002 contest in a 7-7 tie. When both squads ran out of pitchers, the two managers, Joe Torre and Bob Brenly, decided to end the evening.

Call me a traditionalist or a starstruck idiot, but I prefer that my All-Star games consist of nothing but showboating and more showboating.

I'll take a competitive game if I can get one, but the priority, as it should be, is watching ultra-talented players show me, the unathletic viewer, everything my body will never allow me to do.

Consider it the chief reason I will always tune in to the NBA's All-Star Game, even if people think it has become a vainglorious, trite photo opportunity.

An All-Star contest is a chance to comically celebrate that athletes are overpaid and over appreciated. What Selig did in 2003 was attempt to hide that Alex Rodriguez will make more money in his career than maybe 100 dedicated elementary school teachers might make in 10 lifetimes.

He saw that ratings were shrinking and took that to mean that people wanted him to give the summer classic a facelift.

As ratings continue nosediving—last year's game drew 12 million viewers, the lowest in league history—it appears Selig misread the situation.

Home field advantage is sacred and should not be decided in a game that was created as an escape from regular competition. It also should not be decided based on whether the year is even or odd.

The team with the best record entering the World Series should win home field advantage. Why else do you strive for a first place finish?

Shouldn't such an apparent necessity—road records for baseball teams this year are comparable to the atrocious ones NBA teams compiled in the playoffs—be awarded by merit and not who won a glorified showboating contest?

That's what the summer classic is and always has been. When Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle played and when Sandy Koufax pitched and when Hank Aaron played—it was a showboating contest.

Selig disgraced the art of escapism when he launched the ad campaign, "This Time it Counts." This game never had to count, and as many analysts write gloomy editorials about why this once TV smash is now playing second fiddle to C.S.I. reruns, Selig should realize his error.

David Stern has the propensity to ruin almost anything, but given the right talent (think Jordan, Michael), he oversaw professional basketball's greatest, most watched era. The NBA's public relations effectiveness has dipped in the last decade but the zest and relaxed air of its All-Star Game has not.

Stern sees to it that fans vote in the starters and that those players grab plenty of camera time. He lets the 30 coaches fill out the rest of the rosters, and since head coaches know a thing or two about players, they usually get it right.

This year's MLB game features the usual suspects in Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. Then, there's pitcher Cliff Lee of the Cleveland Indians, four months ago competing for a roster spot, now starting for the American League.

It is unlikely that LeBron James and Yao Ming will ever risk being reserves, even if they are injured, as long as they play. They are popular enough to be virtually automatic starters. Brandon Roy and David West will always have spots when they are merited.

Some players deserving of All-Star selection get snubbed, but that's life, so get over it.

When Manu Ginobili erupted for multiple 40 point games after the All-Star break, how many coaches likely regretted not voting him as a reserve? The answer: anyone with eyes and a brain.

Enough Cincinnati Reds fans stuffed ballot boxes in 1957 that only one of the eight starters played for another team.

Instead of encouraging fans of other teams to stuff ballot boxes, then commissioner Ford Frick stripped fans of their right to vote and mandated that players, coaches, and managers select the rosters.

Selig wisely recognizes the necessity of allowing a fan vote. Fans allow a sport to survive, not coaches or managers. All the talent in the world matters not if no one pays to see it. Handing average spectators the power to choose who will start is vindicating.

For those supporting annually mediocre teams...(clears throat)...er, the Houston Astros, such a process allows Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt to attract some of the attention they might get if they played on a championship contender each season.

Sure, managers would ensure that Berkman and Oswalt made the roster if they were weaving spectacular seasons, but that would leave me, the fan, in the cold.

That is the worst condemnation a sport can receive. Leaving fans in the cold is like considering Taco Bell suitable diet food.

Those who complain that Yao Ming starts every year in the NBA game because people in China clog the Internet and vote should get off their fannies and vote.

If that many people in China care enough to vote, it means at least a sizeable portion of them care enough to watch. Never forget that players need fans as much as fans need them.

That's why this sports fan would rather see players save the hustle for the playoffs.

All-star contests allow us to appreciate a league's talent without staunch team loyalties binding the engagement. NL vs. AL and East vs. West pales in comparison to Yankees-Red Sox or Spurs-Lakers. I will stop watching the moment these games serve any other purpose.

American League Manager Terry Francona can talk about "preserving history" and "respecting the game" all he wants. Fine.

Baseball's summer classic can do both without dangling a coveted prize at the end of its rope.

This will be the last All-Star contest played in the current Yankee Stadium. Many people called it "The House That Babe Built" or, those who bemoaned its short right field, dubbed it "The House They Built for Babe."

The storied venue has hosted 37 World Series and the most contentious boxing match in history. Adolf Hitler implored a German fighter to defeat a black one. Fans faced a heavy dilemma then.

The complex underwent a two year remodeling beginning in 1973. That redesigned bowl of history will be retired after this season.

That should be enough for Selig but it isn't.

His summer classic meant a lot more before 2003. Then he decided it didn't mean enough and that's when he screwed it up.

This time it counts—against Major League Baseball.

posted by Robert Kleeman @ 1:36 PM