{"id":894,"date":"2013-07-17T09:07:22","date_gmt":"2013-07-17T13:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=894"},"modified":"2013-07-19T14:11:13","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T18:11:13","slug":"tuesday-teabag-july-16-2013-mlb-all-star-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=894","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Teabag, July 16, 2013 – MLB All-Star Game"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"If<\/a>

If you build it, they will not watch.<\/p><\/div>\n

This week, The Machine takes aim at Baseball, what some people still refer to as America\u2019s pastime.\u00a0 The Machine refers to those people as losers.\u00a0 We all know who rules our hearts and minds.\u00a0 #NFL #51daystokickoff.<\/p>\n

Anyway, back to the All-Star Game.\u00a0 All-Star games, in general, are designed to be entertaining and fun; a chance to see the best of the best play against each other; to suspend rivalries for a night and just have some fun.\u00a0 The Home Run Derby and Dunk Contest are perfect examples.\u00a0 But the games themself?\u00a0 Who cares?.\u00a0 Can you really tell me who won last year\u2019s All-Star Game?\u00a0 How about the Pro-Bowl?\u00a0 Of course not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fact, viewership for last year\u2019s MLB All-Star Game was at an all-time low.\u00a0 We\u2019re willing to bet that the Pro Bowl isn\u2019t far behind.\u00a0 Why do people not watch?\u00a0 The answer is simple:\u00a0 It\u2019s meaningless.\u00a0 But is it more than that?<\/p>\n

Thom Loverro of The Atlantic argues<\/a>\u00a0that it is, and that the decline of the All-Star Game can be traced to two events:\u00a0 the 1993 and 2002 All-Star Games.\u00a0 In 1993, AL Manager Cito Gaston refused to pitch hometown All-Star Mike Mussina, thus enraging the Baltimore crowd and leading to a chorus of boos (and death threats for Cito).\u00a0 In 2002, the game ended in a tie, as Bud Selig, seemingly making up rules on the fly, ended the game in the 11th<\/sup> inning, and in so doing went against the time-honored American tradition of winning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Machine\u2019s not sure if these events caused the downfall of the All-Start Game (we frankly forgot about the \u201993 drama), or simply added to what was already a declining product.\u00a0 For sure, the 2002 All-Star Game exposed the complete ineptitude of Bud Selig, and Loverro’s right about the sad decline of the All-Star Game.\u00a0 But the best was yet to come.<\/p>\n

In an effort to increase the importance of the All-Star Game (read: get more people to watch so we can charge more for advertising) Bud Selig and the MLB Brass decided that the winning league of the All-Star Game will get home field advantage in the World Series.\u00a0 Wait, what?\u00a0 Yes, that\u2019s right.\u00a0 In a game where most people are giving 75% effort because they don\u2019t want to get hurt (the days of Pete Rose sliding head first are long gone), the winning team decides who gets home field advantage in the World Series?\u00a0<\/p>\n

For those of you that think home field advantage is not important, think again:\u00a0 8 of the last 10 World Series have been won by the team with home field advantage.\u00a0 It’s a big deal, which makes determining who gets it by a meaningless game in July all the more ridiculous.<\/p>\n

What does the World Series have to do with the All-Star Game?\u00a0 Sure, it\u2019s the best way anyone from the Mets is going to influence the World Series, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s right.\u00a0 Arbitrarily adding value where none exists is confusing and simply wrong.<\/p>\n

The All-Star Game is kind of like the Iowa Caucus.\u00a0 There\u2019s a reason we let Iowa vote first in Presidential primaries:\u00a0 they\u2019re meaningless.\u00a0 Seriously, we care about Iowa for about 6 minutes, then look at the calendar to see when the real states hold their primaries.\u00a0 How\u2019d Rick Santorum, winner of the 2012 Republican Iowa Caucus, do in the general election?\u00a0 How about Mike Huckabee, the 2008 winner? \u00a0Exactly.\u00a0 So imagine how dumb it would be if, to add importance to Iowa, the winners of the caucus became the Presidential nominees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trying to add meaning to an otherwise meaningless game is beyond dumb.\u00a0 And, let\u2019s be honest:\u00a0 All-Star games are completely meaningless.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The NFL gets it, and is considering drastic changes to the Pro Bowl<\/a>, including changing it to a skills competition or eliminating it completely.\u00a0 The NBA gets it too, and puts more of an emphasis on the Dunk Contest and Skills Competition than the actual game.\u00a0 Christ, even the NHL gets it; they\u2019ve abandoned conference v. conference format and instead have team captains draft players (pretty cool idea, actually).\u00a0 What do all these leagues have in common?\u00a0 They\u2019ve all assigned zero meaning to the actual game, and understand its purpose:\u00a0 a fun, lighthearted, fan-friendly event.<\/p>\n

But not Bud.\u00a0 Bud believes the game has to count for something, in sharp contrast to his tee-ball tie of 2002.\u00a0 And, if his goal is to make it meaningful so people will watch, he\u2019s completely failed, because even though the game now has meaning, nobody watches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Look, Bud.\u00a0 You tried.\u00a0 However misguided, you tried to spice it up, but it didn\u2019t work.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s time to spice it up again, but this time do it in a way that makes sense.\u00a0 Take a page from the NHL and have a draft.\u00a0 Have the fans vote for teams.\u00a0 Have more skills competitions besides the Home Run Derby (fastest man, throwing competitions, etc.).\u00a0 But determining home field advantage for the World Series is not it.\u00a0 It makes zero sense, much like a Santorum Presidency.<\/p>\n

Enjoy your teabag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, The Machine takes aim at Baseball, what some people still refer to as America\u2019s pastime.\u00a0 The Machine refers to those people as losers.\u00a0 We all know who rules our hearts and minds.\u00a0 #NFL #51daystokickoff. Anyway, back to the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tuesday-teabag"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Bp3y-eq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":902,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions\/902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}