Can the baseball All-Star Game be saved? And is it even worth saving?
Jul. 11, 2006 | Baseball’s All-Star Game needs fixing. The Midsummer Classic, renewed Tuesday night in Pittsburgh, is stuck in limbo. It’s part silly exhibition, part deadly serious decider of postseason fates. The two parts don’t mix. And if the All-Star Game isn’t already a joke, it’s getting very close. Want to elicit derisive snorts among baseball fans? Use “This time it counts!” as a punch line. It never misses. This is the first year I’ve seriously heard a commentator compare baseball’s All-Star Game to the NFL’s, the Pro Bowl, and I have to say the comparison sounded pretty fair to me. It’s a rule of life as crucial as not playing poker with guys named Doc: Don’t let anything you care about get compared to the Pro Bowl. Thanks mostly, but not entirely, to historical factors beyond the control of mere mortals, the All-Star Game was already well on the way to irrelevance in 2002 when the dreaded tie game forced commissioner Bud Selig to make a decision, which is never a good thing
