Revamping the MLB All-Star Game: Necessity & Ideas

Unless these players want it to continue, we are not going to have an all-star game. The Midsummer's Classic, this is supposed to be an honor. The baseball game all-star game is supposed to be the best. Why? Because it's the easiest sport to play from an all-star game perspective, okay? And when we made it worth something, and we said now it counts, and home field advantage was awarded to the winner of the all-star game, there was something to be said about the competitive nature of this game. It is an exhibition game. But now it's an exhibition game in which a player wants to be called an all-star. They don't want to play all-star games. They just want the money. They want the prestige. They want it on the back of the baseball card. Five-time all-star, whatever it might be. Because the game is boring. The game has no juice. That's why I bet the under. You have 100-mile-per-hour pitchers coming out of the bullpen every single stop. You got fireballers. And if you're playing an exhibition game, do you want to stand in there and take a 100-mile-per-hour pitch? Because Caballero took one off his hands yesterday, and everyone thought he broke his wrist. Like, do you really want that? Do you really want to have to deal with the fact that you're dealing with a pitch coming at you that can end your career in an exhibition game? Nobody wants to do that. So if the pitchers are up there, and they're going one speed, right? Or all this Chapman comes in throwing 103 miles per hour. Uh, no thanks. Like, you're a hitter. You're not interested in facing that type of gas in an exhibition game. So now you have to find a way to make the players care. So do we go back and say the home field advantage will be determined at the All-Star game? Whoever wins the All-Star game? I don't know if that was well-received by the players. I liked it. I thought it was a cool twist. But it is a pretty significant, pretty big deal for the World Series to have home field advantage based upon players who will never be in the postseason. And when we stop and think about it, you're asking guys on losing baseball teams to play to award their American League or National League teammates home field advantage. If I'm playing on the Angels, what the hell do I care about home field for the American League? I'm going nowhere. My team's going nowhere. So what's the point of that? For American League pride? Why? I'm going to award somebody in my own league an advantage to win a championship? That doesn't make any sense. So that's part of the problem for the All-Star game, quote, mattering. This time it counts. So I think you have to find other ways to make it significant. I think you have to go find other things to make it fun. And look, Addison, I know you might be kidding, but this isn't nuts. Maybe they'll follow the NFL and start playing wiffle ball next year. The NFL has done a skills competition now for their All-Star game. I don't think it would be horrible to do something like that. I don't think he's I know he's kidding, but something along those lines that make it different. A fielding competition, a sprinting competition. I mean, I know guys can get hurt during doing those things. And that's always the worry because it's the middle of the year. The NFL is doing those things at the end of the season. So if you tweak a hamstring or you hurt an ankle or something, you're not going to hurt your team the next week. If I'm running, you know, if I'm doing a timed base deal from first to second, and I tweak my hamstring and I'm out two weeks or a month, I can really hurt my team in the month of August going forward. So I understand that there probably will be some pushback on certain types of activities. But if we're going to make it a clown show, make it a clown show. Just make it completely about having fun. Don't worry so much about making it perfect. And, you know, I know you're kidding with the wiffle ball, but I mean, you could do some pretty fun things to have, like, an actual professional wiffle ball team take on an all-star team. See if Mike Trout can hit a guy throwing a ball 60 miles an hour out of a wiffle ball, right? With crazy up and down movement just to do something different. I don't know. You could do the old school home run derby type of thing where you could do some type of like, you know, one-on-one matchups to see who advances. You could do some type of fielding competition or throwing competition. You could talk about, you know, throwing at different targets. Do things like the skills competition they do with the NHL. I'm not smart enough to come up with the ideas. I just know that right now the all-star game is boring as hell. And Blind Boy Johnny, you're not wrong. If you handed over the all-star game to the Savannah Bananas, think about how much fun that would be if you had an all-star team up against one of the Banana teams or an all-star team of the Bananas. They got four teams now. So create an all-star Banana team and do it up against Major League Baseball and have some type of fun, entertainment, guys on stilts, guys with flaming bats. Just something that makes it more entertaining and more interesting because the Bananas have figured out the entertainment side for a game that who wins, no kid walks out of that building caring about who wins between the Bananas or the Firemen. No one cares.