All-Star Game

All-Star Game

Hello, you're waking up with Tommy.

All-Star Game tonight. I'm one who really likes the mid-summer classic. I think it serves as a mile marker for the year, both the baseball season and the year itself. In the season, it roughly marked midseason.

For my summers as a kid, it marked the halfway point of summer vacation, generally. Get out at the end of May, six weeks until the All-Star Game. Usually five or six weeks until school gets back in session.

Favorite part of the All-Star game? The lineup along the baselines. The introduction of rosters. Just getting to see the best of the brightest of that season all together. Some are there (or seem to be) every year. Clemens. Ivan Rodriguez. Mike Piazza.

As an aside, it seems like a lot of the perennial All-Stars are absent this year. Sammy's having a crappy year in Baltimore (and the bulk of fans saw his Big Pouting Baby side that a lot of us Cubs fans saw for years). Barry Bonds is injured.

I also like seeing the flashes in the pan. Guys who just had a career year, or even just a career couple of months, enough to warrant a selection, who never amounted to much else. Guys for whom standing on that All-Star lineup might just be standing at the high-water mark of their careers. Who's a flash in the pan this year? Dunno. I'd never read Brian Roberts' name outside of a box score before this year, and he's starting the game. Matty Clement's another one. Decent pitcher for the Cubs and Marlins over his career, but he's having a heckuva year for the Sox.

And don't ya think Brian Fuentes is thanking God for that rule that every team gets a player on the roster?

I'm the dork who will, when overcome by boredom and lack of baseball during the winter months, pop in a tape of an old All-Star game to have as background noise.

I have a few tapes of baseball games. Mostly Cubs games. Their playoff run a couple of years back. From 98.

But I've got an equal number of All-Star games. My favorite's probably the 90 game at Wrigley. It just seemed to go on forever.

Cool games? I bought the 71 game off Ebay, before Ebay and MLB cracked down. Bought it from a guy who said he'd worked for a network affiliate back in the day. It was fun getting to see guys play whose careers ended before I became a fan. Willie Mays. Hank Aaron. That's the game with Reggie Jackson's shot off of Dock Ellis.

Favorite moments? I still like seeing John Kruk nearly crap his pants when Randy Johnson lets loose with a pitch that flies to the backstop.

I liked the whole ARod/Cal Ripken changing positions from a few years back, to get Cal at shortstop one more time.

Least favorite moment? The tie. I know the game's an exhibition, and that we have million dollar investments on the field. But Bud Selig should have shown balls and said "We play this game until we're finished."

(As an aside, did anybody catch the car salesman in charge of our game during the home run derby commenting on the Kenny Rogers situation last night, where he'd left it up to Kenny to decide what the good and honorable thing to do toward participating was? Saying inasmuch that it's not his job to decide for these guys what the right and wrong thing to do is? This is why Bud's a shitty commissioner.

Bud, deciding what's right and wrong for the game? THAT'S YOUR JOB IN A NUTSHELL. Put your foot down and say "Kenny Rogers is out of the All-Star Game" instead of waiting to see which way the public sentiment is blowing and worrying yourself sick over whether you'll offend a Rangers fan or not. But I digress....)

Do I like this "It Counts" stuff, where winning league gets home field in the World Series? Eh. It's a nice idea, but Fox shoving it down my throat these last couple of years screaming about how "It Counts, now" is getting old. You know, maybe Manny Ramirez, or Vlad Guerrero, or Chris Carpenter and Albert Poo Holes might care. A smidgen. On a scale of 1 to 100, it's about a 0.35 on the care-o-meter. That's not even to mention Mike Sweeney, Danny Baez or Brian Fuentes, whose teams can count its blessings if they don't lose 100 this year.

Anyway. I'll be watching the Game tonight. Having some pizza and drinking a beer or two. It's a time to take it easy.

This summer, when I've been working myself stupid...I think that's the part I like best.....