All Star Home Run Derby

The 2018 All Star Game and the Home Run Derby are in the books and the experience and results were as expected, a microcosm of Major League Baseball in the millennial age. Sure, the game is an exhibition but it’s still a baseball game, not my old Saturday morning softball beer fest at Memorial Field with the keg on the sidelines. Complete with indulgent selfies and the HR or bust mentality, these overpaid, pumped up Superheroes stroll to the plate like they just received the ESPY for Outstanding Performance in the All About Me category. Cellphones on the field, c’mon, man!

First, the All Star game, with the players voted in by fans, writers, Managers and Russian troll-bots. The winner of the game means nothing anymore after 14 years of deciding home field for the World Series. Now I don’t know if the link of All Star Game-World Series Home Field makes any sense but there needs to be some sort of consequence to the loser, and it can’t be money. Maybe some waterboarding by Cheney or getting yelled at by Jim Harbaugh for an hour.

As for the microcosm of the current state of baseball, we are in the process of witnessing the decline of the fundamental elements of this still beautiful game. The bunt, the sacrifice, moving runners over, hitting the cutoff man, the stolen base, running out ground balls, taking pitches and walks, are being replaced by the bat flip pose, the chest pump, the home plate choreographed greeting and the ever evolving variation on the High-five with the 37 jujitsu moves. Relief pitchers are starting games and lasting an inning. A pitcher rarely throws into the 6^th inning and over 100 pitches. A 6^th and 7^th and 8^th inning specialist, gimme a break! And the interminable length of games! Four hours each of a seven game home-and home between Tampa and Baltimore in August, help me please! Yeah, I know it’s just kids playing a kids game, having fun, but let’s try to keep some of the game in the game.

The most significant factor we are seeing however is the steep rise of the Strikeout and the Home Run and the decline of the batting average. Overrated All-Star and HR Derby winner, ahem, Bryce Harper is batting .214 with almost one third of his ABs result in a K. Fifty percent more Strikeouts than hits and this is an All Star? Can anybody guess why the Nationals are 48-48 at the break and 5 ½ games behind the Phillies? But trot him and his .214 out there in the Midsummer Classic like he’s Patrick fuckin’ Henry. Guess what, he struck out swinging for the Washington monument on both plate appearances and got a hop and body bump when he got back to his dugout.

This annual four hour joke of a contest featured 18 pitchers, 69 combined at-bats, 25 strikeouts and ten home-runs. That’s 35 out of the 69 ABs (over 50%) that resulted in either a K or a HR, oh, and eight of the 10 HRs were solo jobs. Look at me Ma! By the way the AL won 8-6 in 10 innings on HRs by Bregman and Springer.

As for the Home Run Derby, and in the theme of continuing to trash Harper, he was undeservedly crowned the winner of this farce after pounding HRs off his Dad to eke out a victory over Cub Kyle Schwarber in the waning seconds. Seems the rules go out the window when the hometown pretty boy needs a few more seconds to blast away into the DC fireworks. Yeah, you’re supposed to wait until the ball lands before throwing the next pitch, Pop. Oh, that’s right, those rules apply to everyone else, not me and my boy, and if you don’t like it, we’re taking our ball and going home. It wasn’t only the Cub fans who screamed about his crap. A forty foot lob pitch in your go zone is a test, really? Why don’t they just put the damn ball on a tee like the rest of the eight year olds do?

-HB