With the three most boring days of the year behind us, I’ll throw a few observations from the All-Star Break while I rub the sleep from my eyes.
Barry Bonds didn’t participate in the Home Run Derby.
The soon-to-be homerun king couldn’t bring himself to put on a power display for his hometown fans. There’s only one city in all of MLB that supports the human bobblehead and he turned his back on ‘em. Thanks for the last-minute surge of votes to get me into the game. I’ll be in the dugout. Though I would be tempted to skip the whole event if I were a player, to be in Bonds’ position and sit on the sidelines is just short of ‘flipping the bird’ to the fans. Don’t buy into any of the excuses (he played in the game on Tuesday), the only reason Bonds didn’t participate is because people wanted him to. And heaven forbid Mr. Bobblehead play any role other than the antagonist.
The Home Run Derby ran long on ESPN.
The event was scheduled for a two-hour window on the “worldwide leaderâ€. I set my DVR to record it. When the time came to sit down and watch the derby for the purposes of a Canon Fodder article, I came to realize more than an hour was missing. I’ll join the chorus of boo birds calling for the derby to be reformatted into a less time-consuming ordeal. (Frankly, Selig and Co. can scrap the whole thing and I won’t miss a wink of sleep.)
But what really bothered me was the fact my DVR isn’t smart enough to realize the show wasn’t over when it stopped recording. I realized there are options to make it continue recording beyond the program’s scheduled time, but they keep telling me this is smart technology. We can put a man on the moon but we can’t get a DVR to realize a game is going past ten o’clock? Try recording a hockey game and realizing the DVR cutoff prior to overtime. Watch three hours of programming to have the last five minutes disappear and you’ll have a whole new type of “shootout†take place right in your own living room.
Ichiro hit an inside-the-park homerun en route to the All-Star MVP award.
That was quite a fortuitous bounce off the extra advertising MLB cluttered all over the outfield wall. I hope one of the MLB suits noticed the impact that banner had on the game. Were this to happen during a post-season instead of an exhibition game – and it proved to be the difference on the scoreboard – MLB might have a near riot on their hands.
On the bright side, Ichiro has been scorching hot through the first half of his contract walk year. Rumors have begun circulating of a $20 million per year deal on the table from the Mariners. The announcement is likely to come on Friday. Ichiro’s no longer playing for free-agent money? Time to trade him off my fantasy team.
St. Louis Cardinal Albert Pujols was upset at not being put into the game.
The best part of this debacle is how the guy calling the shots for the NL team was Tony LaRussa – Pujols’ own manager. Pujols complained saying, “…if I wasn’t expecting myself to play, I wouldn’t have come up here. I’d rather stay home with my family.†Considering the guy is getting paid $13 million this year, got a free trip to San Francisco and all the perks associated with playing – or in this case, not playing – in the All-Star game, and the only cost was three days away from his family, you can excuse me if I don’t breakout the weepy violins. And Pujols apparently feels three days away from the wife and kids to carouse with baseball’s elite was too much to pay… unless he got one at-bat in the game. It looks like Albert could use a little perspective. At least his family has learned exactly what they’re worth to him.
Just how awful was the Fox broadcast team?
I applaud Fox for their dedication to covering sports on the local level but their “A†baseball crew is horrible. Kevin Kennedy and Ken Rosenthal are great and too seldom used. Joe Buck is good, but he’s not Jack Buck. Then there’s the rest of the broadcast team. (And I use the term “team†very loosely.) Tim McCarver?! Worst. Color. Analyst. Ever. Ever. And everything centers around Jeanne Zelasko. Words just can’t appropriately describe her impact on sports broadcasting. She’s beyond brutal. I stab the clicker’s mute button as soon as her massive coiffure appears. Jeanne isn’t bad on the eyes but once the gums start flapping, well, you’ve been forewarned.
Short and sweet this evening. Baseball is back in action on Thursday. I still haven’t touched on whatever tennis tournament I was ignoring last weekend. The NBA free-agent signing period got rolling with a horrible contract being awarded in Orlando. NHL free-agency has been a disaster for a few teams, not that anyone watches the NHL so almost nobody has noticed. Lots of stuff to discuss so we’ll probably be all over the place on Friday. Or maybe I’ll crank out a diary of the Tigers-Mariners tilt tonight. (Luckily, the game doesn’t start until after my little girl’s bedtime so premature DVR cutoff won’t torpedo another article.)
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