Even though the stupid All Star Home Run Derby was the night before, last night’s Major League Baseball All Star Game, which was allegedly baseball at its best, was decided by another home run derby, this one called a “swing-off.” The game’s nine innings ended in a tie, see, after an unprecedented comeback by the American League, which had trailing by six runs with just three innings to go against the National League’s best pitchers. This set up the game for a thrilling finish, like, say, Carlton Fisk hitting the ball out in the 12th inning of Game Six of the 1975 World Series, but no.
The 95th All-Star Game in Atlanta was settled by a “home run swing-off” to settle the tie. Worse still, the game’s MVP award was given to Kyle Schwarber of the National League, based on how he performed in the “swing-off” (I can’t believe I’m writing this), not in the part of the night known as “a baseball game.”
By the time Rob Manfred, the Worst Baseball Commissioner Ever Not Named Bud Selig , is through making up rules and gimmicks, baseball fields will have fun obstacles—you, know, gnome heads, water hazards and little twisty chutes?—like in miniature golf. He wants to make the game entertaining for people who are bored by baseball….you know, like him.
All of this is because the mega-millionaire players stopped wanting to actually play hard in the iconic exhibition game—might get injured, lose a big contact—and managers were pressured into not playing to win but rather treating the game like an elementary school Halloween parade, where every kid in costume gets a moment in the metaphorical sun (the games aren’t played in the daytime anymore, like they were when kids could watch their favorite players). So pitchers never pitch more than an inning, maybe two for the starters, and players all get an at-bat, but that means that if the game ends in a tie, one or both teams will have no players left. Behold! The stupid “swing-off,” which is even less baseball than the “zombie runner” gimmick used to break ties in the regular season. It had never been used before.
Ethics Alarms 