The MLB All-Star Game - (A Little Of Everything)

The number of Americans who say that baseball is their favorite sport is at an all-time low. This is a trend that has been ongoing for many years, and MLB is trying to reverse it. They brought out a lot of their ideas for this year’s mid-summer classic. The home run derby is, of course, an old standby. However, this year, a litany of graphical displays and analytical analysis were on show to make the event more engaging and dynamic. It's better than simply watching stars club one dinger after another off of a pitcher who was trying to assist them. It didn’t hurt that the game’s most charismatic young star and hometown hero, Bryce Harper, won the event in thrilling fashion. The game itself was an exciting event if you like home runs. There were a record ten long balls, coupled with 25 strikeouts. Another young star, Alex Bregman of the Houston Astros, drilled the game-winning shot, thereby bagging the MVP and winning a car from some advertiser. The real challenge must have been pretending to be excited about a prize worth the amount of money he makes while adjusting his cup. Several players were mic'd up during the game, which was a fun feature that should be introduced into more games. This allowed fans to hear interviews and commentary from players as the game was being played. Indians star, Francisco Lindor said, "This is a show. We are entertainers. People want to see home runs. People want to see strikeouts. They also want to feel they're in the dugout with us or out at shortstop with me. Having the mic on and being able to interact with guys on the field, that was awesome. Those things are great." I think Francisco might be wrong here. Home runs and strikeouts are fun when they are exceptional. When that’s all we see, we are robbed of rallies and great defensive plays and even bad defensive plays that turn the tide of the game. I think it is a great move to increase the number of statics displayed during the game. Also to use more sophisticated numbers that tell us more about what is happening. The mic'd up feature is great. But I worry about baseball if the entire game becomes a home run derby. The game was somewhat marred by a "controversy" surrounding Josh Hader, the Milwaukee Brewers lethal relief pitcher: Some internet sleuth was able to uncover things Hader had said on Twitter at the age of seventeen. Everyone was shocked, shocked to learn that a seventeen-year-old boy quoted edgy rap lyrics and tried his hand at being offensive ironically! The press rushed to Hader’s teammate, Lorenzo Cain, to see if they could stir anything up. Cain was rather dismissive of the issue. The response seemed to almost universally be that we shouldn’t be judged by the dumbest stuff we say and do as teenagers. Some of us can only hope that this grace period is extended by a few decades.