I watched it last night because there was really nothing else worth seeing on TV, but I hate what the All-Star game has become, and have hated it for a long time. Before inter-league play and huge contracts, the “Mid-Season Classic” was a real game, played as intensely as the World Series, for the honor of the two separate leagues. (Ask Ray Fosse how intensely.) Managers would try to get and keep the strongest possible line-up in the game: it wasn’t unusual for several stars to play all 9 innings. Starting pitchers went three innings, not just one. Players slid into bases and dived for balls. It was a real contest. In ethics terms, the All-Star Game had integrity.
For decades now, it has just been a bunch of rich guys going through the motions, joking with each other, making sure no one got hurt. The obvious objective of the managers is to get all 30 players on the roster on the field if possible, not to win. It’s a parade: viewers barely get to see a player display the skills that made him an All-Star. The event has the seriousness of a celebrity softball game…there’s no tension, no drama.
Of course, no one under the age of 40 probably remembers when it was anything else, like so many American traditions that rot over time because people forget what was good about them. It’s not a big deal. It’s just too bad.
I first wrote about the deterioration of the All-Star Game in 2011. That one contains more details on the origins of the game and what it once signified: I recommend it. In this more recent post, I traced the steps that led the All-Star Game to this diminished state.
Incidentally, one of the thrills of my young life as a Red Sox and baseball fanatic was when my favorite player on the team, a journeyman shortstop named Eddie Bressoud who had blossomed into a team leader, key player, clutch hitter and captain of the team after being traded to Boston, was selected to the 1964 All-Star team in the middle of his best season.
He was the only player on the AL team who didn’t get in the game. Jim Fregosi of the Angels played all 9 innings. To be fair, he was a better fielder than “Steady Eddie.” But I was inconsolable.
Ethics Alarms 
For some reason, I found the introductions of cross-league games repugnant. It not only watered down the All Star game, but I think it hurt the World Series itself, since it was no longer the unique meeting of the greatest team of each league. I don’t have the greatest argument against cross-league play, and I’m sure some people absolutely love it, so I can’t make any great ethical analysis of it. But surely there has to be something wrong with taking something special and diluting it.
Oh, you’re absolutely right. Inter-League play was a gimmick to goose ratings and attendance, and it worked as a novelty. The prices was devaluing the All-Star Game and the Series. But once the Leagues were consolidated and made an artificial division, the original purpose of both events was rendered moot. The expanded play-offs competed the marginalization of the Series, which no longer is between the best teams in each League, but the teams with winning records that got the hottest in October. Both the Rangers and the Diamondbacks, last year’s Series teams, were second tier, and everyone knew it. They did play a good Series, but essentially, this is hockey.
Did the Diamondbacks really defeat both the Dodgers and the Phillies last year? Or was I dreaming?
I saw a promo for the All-Star Game that featured a picture of A-Rod’s face. Yuck. Another reason not to go anywhere near either the home run derby or the All-Star Game, which has become analogous to one of those scripted “reality” shows.
And of course there’s the incredibly random unfairness of teams in a division playing different teams during the course of the season!
ARod! Why in the world would he be in a promo? Yechhh.
I assumed A-Rod would be doing some commentary. Again, I haven’t watched an AS game in probably well over twenty years. They are as you have described. I’d no more watch The Batchelor or Survivor episode. Or The Kardashians Show
And frankly, I find it more than a little annoying the way guys on base yuck it up with the baseman as if they’re all just buddies playing a softball game after work. Actually, I’d guess most rec league softball games are more hotly contested than current MLB games.
You took the words right out of my keyboard.
The first link is to a post on the All Star game from 2015. Interesting post (and great comments), but I think not what you were aiming for.
I think a lot of the changes MLB has made in the last 25 years or so have been oriented to casual fans or non-fans who might watch an occasional game. I guess baseball couldn’t figure out how to keep up the numbers of its really devoted fans, so they cheapened the game to draw extra viewers.
I remember watching the Pro Bowl. I remember watching the All Star game. I don’t watch either nowadays for all the reasons you mention. I will say that I never minded the extra festivities they installed during the All Star break, although I’ve never watched a home run derby or any of the rest. The once a year stuff is fine — it’s the everyday descent into Mickey Mouse baseball that bothers me.
I still don’t like the universal DH, even though I long got used to it watching AL teams. When they head the Series or interleague play, I don’t think the NL pitchers were significantly better hitters than their AL counterparts — however, they probably were much better bunters. It was more of an advantage when the DH was used, since AL teams were built to have that hitter.
A handful of the changes have actually made the game better — I am a late accepter of the pitch clock, but it has worked. The change to the IBB was good. And we’ve really gotten used to the replay system MLB has adopted — it helps get bad calls righted, and it doesn’t majorly extend the game as in basketball.
But then there are things such as zombie runners, and the restrictions on pick off attempts. The latter actually does have arguments for and against. But zombie runners? Home run contests to resolve ties? As some young folks might say, gag me with a spoon.
Don’t give up on the baseball posts. There is more than one ardent fan reading this blog.