Baseball Blows
Except For The All Stars
Mike Leitao ~ 07/22/2024
Baseball is boring. I have made that point before and I will stand by it till the day I die. It’s mostly tedious and you are waiting around for one specific type of play to happen for a glimmer of excitement, or hoping that you are lucky enough to end up choosing a game where there is a bench clearing. Even then, the fights are rarely as satisfying as you want. That being said, baseball gets one thing right that all the other major sports in America can’t seem to figure out, the all star game. Try as they might, most leagues just can’t get the all star game right. It’s either too boring, the players clearly don’t care about it, or the extra events are just lame. Baseball on the other hand does an excellent job at keeping the game fun and exciting while also having interesting events throughout the all star break.
Firstly, baseball gets the timing right better than any other sport. There is an argument to be made that basketball and hockey get the timing slightly better since they take place roughly 2/3rds of the way into season, but I think the halfway mark is a great time to do it. It really sets up who are the stars and the players worth watching for the second half of the season as teams fight for playoff spots, where in the NBA you already know who the stars are and there is overall less parity. The NHL, where the roster sizes are small and each team is required to have one all star, is not, realistically, a great gauge for star players. The NFL is the clear cut worst at this, making an all star game that half the players opt out of since the season is already over and they don’t care, plus, it’s the weekend before the Super Bowl (you know the thing people actually care about) so no one is making sure they tune in to watch boring-ass football.
The next thing that baseball does better than the other sports is their extra all star events during the break. Once again, football is shit in this category. Yeah I really love watching NFL players playing dodgeball and hitting golf balls, really valuable skills worthy of being an all star. The NBA used to be good but the dunk contest blows now and the other contests are pretty boring too. The NHL comes closest with some actually interesting and fun activities during the all star break, but baseball has been doing the same thing for a hot minute and it’s working. The prospects game is always fun, since baseball rosters are so large combined with so many prospects they all have fun watching the young guns play each other and gives fans an early glimpse of the future of baseball. The celebrity softball game is good too, about as good as you can except whenever celebrities are shoved down your throat in something they don’t need to be. Of course the pinnacle of baseball all star events is the home run derby. Taking the most exciting part of your sport and making a competition centered around seems pretty logical, but damn is the home run derby always a good time, unlike the recent bum ass dunk contests. Home runs are fun, they don’t need to be fancy to be cool, we just want to see dudes hitting absolute bombs as hard as they possibly can and that’s what keeps the home run derby above things like the NBA’s dunk contest or the shootout event.
The biggest thing that separates baseball’s all star weekend from other sports is simple though, it’s the fucking game itself. Baseball has one clear advantage over the other sports, it actually feels like a real game. In football seeing guys running half speed and half ass playing flag football is nowhere near as fun as seeing a guy catch a slant across the middle and get lit the fuck up. Oh but it’s at the end of the season and guys don’t wanna get hurt, I hear you bitching. Simple response is I don’t care, they get paid millions, suck it up and take or give a hit.
Basketball with no defense sucks mostly because there are only so many ways to score a basketball interestingly and when the score ends 211-186. Holy shit, how much more boring can you be. Hockey is ok since they play a 3 on 3 game and the lack of defense is a little more understandable, but still, after a while you are basically just watching a shootout and it gets boring quickly. Then you get to baseball, where the game is actually somewhat interesting. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still baseball so it’s got a cap on how exciting it can really be, but because of the way baseball is played, taking all the best players in the league and having them compete actually creates a compelling and interesting game. Pitchers are actively trying to strike batters out, fielders are actually trying to make plays to get people out, hitters have to actually work for hits as opposed to just getting underhand throws they can hit dingers off of. The game actually feels like the players want to be there, and for a while when it used to determine which conference would get home field advantage in the World Series, it actually meant something which is something no other major all star game can even try and claim.
Now I of course can’t come out here shitting on the actual sports I enjoy watching and defending the sport I’ve called boring multiple times, so welcome to Mike’s quick and dirty fix to the other major sports all star games:
Football: Bring back the violence to the game and add skills competitions that actually relate to football like a WR vs DB battle and Oklahoma drills.
Basketball: bring in amateur dunkers for the dunk contest cause those guys can do some crazy shit and would actually want to be there. Plus, impose a score limit to win so maybe there will actually be some level of defense.
Hockey: get rid of the every team needs to have an all star (why are we giving out participation trophies at the highest level of a sport) and similar to basketball, impose a goal limit for each period so the teams actually try to play some defense.
Baseball still sucks, it’s still slow and boring and has other things that don’t make sense at all that other sports do much better at (seriously why is the draft in the middle of the season, it makes no sense). As long as baseball keeps its all star game the way it is, and other sports don’t change to get better (which let’s not kid ourselves they probably won’t) at least baseball will have one saving grace compared to the actual good sports in America.
