I just had the displeasure of watching the NBA All Star Game. I saw the final score for the NFL Pro Bowl and I remember how bad the NHL All Star Game was last year.
These games are a joke and a waste of time. This is the single most reason that the MLB All Star Game should be played seriously. Players should be honored to be picked, they should not wimp out and skip the game and they should play balls out just like Pete Rose did.
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Totally agree biggerpapi. MLB needs to put a quality product on the field or fuggetaboutit! I refuse to watch any NFL. NHL, NBA All-Star games. I have vastly more important things to do such as clean my attic or rearrange my sock drawer. Each major sport claims they are putting on a show for its fans. What fans? I'm not sure about their demographics, but all my friends are not watching that all star crap (NFL, NHL, NBA)...they'd rather watch Pro Golf or Daytona qualifying rounds. Just for the record, I went to a college baseball game then I went to the indoor batting cage with my youngest son.
If MLB is going to continue with the All-Star game then there needs to be some skin in the game.....MLB provides the skin with World Series home field advantage....that gets the players attention. I'm not saying I agree with the home field advantage but it does seem to sufficiently motivate these MLB players which is no easy task.
If there is no motivation or skin for the MLB players, then I think most people will stop watching the MLB All-Star game. It will go the way of the dodo bird.
I'm a fan of all four major sports. I can't remember the last time I bothered to watch an all-star game. I record the introductions of the baseball all-star game. I enjoy the pomp and circumstance of the pregame.
Back in the days of the reserve clause, when a typical player spent his entire career with one team, there was a rivalry in terms of wanting to prove that "our league is tougher/better than your league." In today's environment of player movement from one league to the other and back, and with inter-league play now the norm, you're just not going to get that.
In the old days, you'd see guys like Willie Mays play the entire game. Now the emphasis is on emptying the bench before it's over.
As with all things these days, as long as the money keeps rolling in, MLB sees no reason to change.
"Back in the day" we were kids and thought everything was wonderful. We weren't informed and jaded by the business side of sports. My kids (24 and 19) don't think there's anything wrong with pro sports. They've grown up with the way it is.
I remember my father telling me, regardless of stats no one played the game like DiMaggio, Musial and Williams. Yastrzemski had the potential but was a modern day player whose motivation was tamped by his huge salary (three years, 500K).
Even Ty Cobb once said baseball was being ruined by high salaries. The reality is as we grow older it's comfortable to be able to reach back and grasp things that were always there for us, especially as kids.
Here's my Modest Proposal:
Get rid off all the revenue sharing BS, and let the Players Union own the All-Star Game. Let them have rights to MLB All-Star Game marketing collateral, promotional rights, trinkets-and-trash sales, and let them have the Gross Receipts from the gate. Only requirement would be that they would have to hold the game with the players voted on by the fans.
They would then be incentized to figure out how to make the game interesting.
It would take about 15 minutes for the Players to vote that the winner gets more of the money. Then just sit back and watch a group of primadonna's scratch it out like they were still trying to get drafted.
