Friday, July 15, 2011

Changing the All Star Game

There is quite a bit wrong with the All Star game. As I was watching the game on TV I grew so tired of the announcers saying that Bruce Bochy was going to play match ups and focus really hard on trying to win, because as you know this one counts. But really this game doesn’t count. Yes it decides home field advantage for the World Series, but do you really think the players care about that. Do you believe that a guy like Jose Bautista is going to go out there and kill himself trying to win this game. His Blue Jays are in fourth place and have no shot of going to the World Series. I grew so tired of the announcers saying how intense this game was.  This game was not intense at all; look at what Heath Bell did when he came into the game. He sprinted in from the bullpen and slid into the mound. That was just hilarious and showed how little intensity there was in this game. If this was a regular season game he would not have done that players take season games seriously, Bell showed us what this game is supposed to be about fun. With that here are my ways to fix the all-star game.
Get rid of the stupid this game counts
Home field advantage in the World Series should not be decided by a meaningless game in July. Home field advantage should go to the team with the best record in the regular season. Now people say this is unfair since teams don’t play the same schedule and all that stuff, but it’s probably the fairest way to do it. It’s rewarding the team who played the best over the entire season. It’s also better than the previous way home field advantage was decided before it was decide by the All Star game. Previously it just alternated each year back and forth, the American League was in odd years and the National League was the even years. That way was fine but really the team with more wins should get home field advantage.
Change the Homerun Derby
The homerun derby needs to be changed. The derby is great, I enjoy it but more players need to be involved. I don’t think that more players should be added to the derby, but what I would like to see done is have more skills competitions other than just the derby. First I think the derby needs to be shortened so we can have more competitions. I feel that players in the derby should be cut in half so we have 4 players two from the AL and two from the NL. Also there needs to be less outs, 10 are far too many, it should be cut down to 5. With only four competitors the derby would only be 2 rounds. Of the four who are involved the top two obviously move on and the winner of that round is the homerun derby champion.
New Skills Competitions are needed.   
It would be great to see some other skills showcased other than just power. I would like to see a competition in involving defence and speed. For a defence competition, you have a fast runner on second (like a Matt Kemp) and you then have a player with a cannon of an arm in right field (like Bautista). You than have a coach hit the ball out to right field and the fielder has to try to throw out the runner coming home. If the runner is out a point is scored for the defence and if the runner beats the throw there league gets a point.
This would be exciting and fun to watch because what’s more exciting than a play at the plate not much in my opinion. Of course safety precautions would need to be taken, tell the runners not to collide with the catcher and tell the catchers not to block the plate. Overall I feel like this would be great to see.
If more events are being added there must be some form of speed event. Something like a race around the bases or a race to first base, something that all the players could compete in. It could be done by positions to keep it fair. There also could be a stolen base event. Have the catchers see if they can try and throw out some of the games fastest players. The stolen base is another very exciting play that I feel people would enjoy watching during an all-star skills competition.
There has been no talk about this actually happening but still I feel some changes are need to the all-star game and the homerun derby, and who knows maybe Bud Selig has something up his sleeve for next season.
Comments are appreciated; let me know how I’m doing and what I can improve on. Thanks.

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