Anyway, the All-Star Game rosters were announced with little fanfare. Sure, there will be some debate over the validity over Addison Russell's selection or Kyle Seager's snub, but that fact of the matter is that the All-Star Game is no longer the much-watch event that it used to be. Take someone like me for example. I am probably the biggest baseball fan around, I watch probably 150 out of 162 Met games a year, yet I don't know if I will watch the MLB All Star Game. I'll probably end up putting it on, but that fact that it is not a must-watch for a die-hard baseball fan speaks to how far the All-Star Game has fallen.
The All Star Game used to mean something. It used to be must-watch television for any baseball fan. However, recent changes to the game have made it as redundant as the NFL Pro-Bowl. The first problem is that the starting lineups are voted exclusively by fans. This has been a problem in recent years, as fan bases have stuffed the ballot boxes to put in undeserving players that play on their team. This year, for example, 5 out of the 8 starters in the National League are on the Chicago Cubs, including the entire infield. Though you could argue that Anthony Rizzo, Ben Zobrist, Kris Bryant, and to a lesser extent Dexter Fowler deserve to start the All Star Game, there is no way that Addison Russell should be allowed anywhere near that game, yet here he is starting. At best, Russell might be the 8th best shortstop in the National League, yet here is starting because the entire city of Chicago voted for him
Players like Russell starting the game is bad for the MLB, who are trying to capture the casual fan. The casual fan wants to see the best players in this game, like Corey Seager, not mediocre (at best) players like Addison Russell.
A bigger problem for the All Star Game is interleague play. Obviosuly, there are two leagues in Major League Baseball, the American League and the National League. Before 1997, these two leagues would only play each other in the World Series. As a result of this, the best players from each league almost never got to play each other. This made an exhibition like the All Star Game a very exciting event, as you got to see the rare occurrence of superstar players from separate leagues on the same field.
If you were a baseball fan in the 1960s, you would probably say that the best player in baseball was Micky Mantle, while the best pitcher in baseball was Bob Gibson. The issue here was that Gibson played in the National League while Mantle played in the American League. So apart from the 1964 World Series, the only opportunity to see these two legends face each other was during the All Star Game, which made it appointment television.
Things are different now, interleague play has been going on since 1997, which takes away the rarity of National League teams playing American League teams. Whats worse, is that since 2013 interleague play has expanded. Now, a team will play 20 interleague games a season against an entire division. So teams in the NL East for example, which each play 20 games against teams from the AL Central.
This expansion of interleague play greatly diminishes the uniqueness that used to make the All Star Game great. Just as Mantle and Gibson were the best players in the 1960s, Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw are widely considered to be the greatest players of today's game. However, if Trout and Kershaw were to face each other in the All Star Game next week (this won't happen because Kershaw is injured), it will not be the least bit special or unique because they have already faced each other 12 times in the regular season.
The fact of the matter is that all-star games in all professional sports tend to be pretty boring, and for the most part have become more for the advertisers than for the fans (its officially the MLB All Star Game, presented by MasterCard). The NFL Pro Bowl has become unwatchable, and the NBA All Star Game isn't much better. So its hard to get too upset for the MLB All Star Game becoming boring and redundant. However, unlike in other sports, the MLB All Star Game has a history of being unique, as for most of the game's existence most of the players were on the field together for the first time.
Unlike the other sport's all-star games, though, the MLB version actually means something. Inexplicably, the league that wins the All Star game has gotten home-field advantage in the World Series since 2003. This makes a an exhibition game that fans and players do not take seriously worth quite a bit. I could write a whole other blog about wrong with this setup, but I'll leave it at the fact that an exhibition game should count for exactly nothing, not home-field advantage in the World Series.
Do I encourage everyone to watch the All Star Game on Tuesday? Yes I do. If you're not familiar with a lot of the game's biggest stars, its a great way to see them in action. However, if you watch your own team's games even at a casual level, you will probably see all these players anyway without watching the All Star Game. It wasn't always that way.
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