MLB’s All-Star Game is a fraud and a joke

With last week’s MLB All-Star Game going 15 innings, and mercifully ending in the bottom of the 15th on a walk-off sacrafice fly in the final All-Star Game at historical Yankee Stadium in it’s final season, MLB’s All-Star Game was exposed as a fraud and a joke. After the 2002 game which ended in a tie in Bud Selig’s hometown of Milwaukee, the commish has tried to make the game more entertaining, and get the players to care about the game, by linking home-field advantage in the World Series to the game, with Fox using the slogan this one counts. As this game lingered on, Bud Selig told both managers that the game would be played to it’s end.

If these games are to really count, then massive changes are needed. First off, every team should not have to be represented. If the game is to count, why should better players from teams that already have reps be left off so every team has someone at the game? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of playing to win? Second, something has to be done about the pitchers. You’ve got guys throwing 100+ pitches on the Sunday before the game who have to throw 2 days later in the All-Star Game. This can damage their arms down the road and jeopardize their teams playoff hopes, like the Philadelphia Phillies for example. Brad Lidge got up 6 times, and threw over 100 warm-up pitches, plus the pitches he threw in the game. If I was the Phillies GM, I would be livid that my pitcher had to do that. To remedy this, the rosters should be expanded so more pitchers can be added, so that these guys who throw on Sunday don’t have to be used, unless of course the game started becoming a single-game triple-header.

Lastly, linking home-field advantage in the World Series to this game should be abolished. It’s a complete joke that this exhibition decides who gets game 7 of the WS at home. MLB has really screwed this up.