You can root for the Mets without being convinced of their doom
July is here and the All-Star Game at Citi Field is just a week away. As such, there are logos and signs around New York City, besides the Apples on Parade, and traffic signs are warning about heavy congestion around Citi Field next week.
We’ve got the advertisements on the side of phone booths (you can look those up on Wikipedia if you don’t know).
TholeMoley over at Mr. Met Is My Brother wrote a post about watching the NHL All-Star Game. Actually she’s wrote a couple of them, but I want to talk about one of them specifically. I wanted to watch the festivities this weekend, especially with John Tavares a part of them, but I had other things to deal with and missed it. TholeMoley highlighted some of the events in the skills competition, and talks about how much better it is than the Home Run Derby.
Now, personally I like the Home Run Derby. There is nothing more magnificent in all of sports than watching a baseball player swing and smash a baseball 400+ feet in the air. There’s just a simple majestic beauty to it, especially if you see it in person like I did in 2006. (And that’s not just because you can’t hear Chris Berman) Most of what people object to about the Derby is the massive amount of time between batters and all the other stuff besides the mammoth home runs.
So broadening the spectrum might be fun and could include more than just the Home Run Derby and the random eight players they can find to participate. TholeMoley suggests a fastest trip around the bases to parallel the fastest skater event. She also mentions fastest players, hardest throwers, and the most accurate throwers getting their time to shine.
You could do an accuracy event. Set up some milk bottles on a table, and have the players throw a baseball at them. If they hit it they advance to the next round and take five steps back. Repeat this until you have a winner. If all players miss at the same time, simply repeat that round.
Not to take anything away from the kids that get to shag balls in the outfield, but you could position the All-Star outfielders at the walls and let them try to rob home runs all night. Most of them clear the fence by quite a bit though.
Perhaps giving out more titles is the way to go. In a social media society we’re all used to get badges and titles for things as simple as checking in to the ballpark more than anyone else. Instead of just crowning a winner, crown the guy with the farthest home run, with the most home runs back to back and the guy with the highest single round total.
These are just a couple of suggestions, and none of them seem too much different than simple warm-up activities so there shouldn’t be any real concern about anyone getting hurt. It’d be an interesting way to spice up the event and might spike interest that has been fading over the years. There are other things they can do to, like break up the idea of National League versus American League since the advent of interleague play takes away some of the mystery of it. It’s pretty clear that the All-Star Game is not perfect, and MLB should always be looking to tweak it.
Here’s David Wright touch home after homering in the 2006 All-Star Game.
