I must have missed the part of the article that polled the players as opposed to a handful that commented.
Hey, I just gave you a link to a story that was run on a lot of websites over the past few days; I imagine that’s where RealityChuck got the idea that players don’t like it. Forgive me that it didn’t meet your expectations.
I posted this two weeks ago. It died an unlamented death in its own thread, but maybe it can be discussed here. I, of course, think it’s positively brilliant:
Why not make the team with the best record in the regular season have home field advantage?
As I stated in another thread, the MLB All-Star game is trying to meet two separate and conflicting goals. Putting HFA for the WS on the line certainly adds to the “meaningfulness” of the game, but there are other factors which promote its role as an exhibition, and these are at odds with having a game that “counts”:
[ul]
[li]Requiring every team to be represented means there is a chance you must pick a player who is not as good/useful as another.[/li][li]Teams routinely put pitch counts on their pitchers for an All-Star game. Scott Kazimir was an example from last nights game.[/li][li]There is the unwritten custom that everybody gets to play. This is the only reason why, for example, Francisco Rodriguez was basically wasted in last night’s game; Francona couldn’t get away with omitting Rivera from the game after the booing Papelbon got (pretty classless IMO).[/li][/ul]
I’m not saying these are all bad things, but they certainly don’t contribute to making the game “count”. Basically the ASG is managed the same way now as it was before the HFA prize was added. If the game were all about winning, A-Rod would probably play the entire 16 innings, Dan Uggla’s lead glove would not be in the lineup in extras, and there’d be far fewer pitching changes.
The reason people protested the 2002 affair was (1) fans paid $125 a pop to get in, and (2) it was clear baseball had no plan to deal with the situation. Thin-skinned Bud over-reacted, which allowed Fox to manipulate him into adding the HFA prize.
Bud’s post-game declaration that they “would have played until the end” shows how stupid he is–you really want the game’s meaning to come down to two guys who hadn’t pitched since high-school (there was a good chance J.D. Drew and David Wright would have been pitching if it had gone 1-2 more innnings)? He clearly doesn’t see the core conflict, and thinks the HFA gimmick has appeased the fans.
Make it an exhibition or make it a real game, and change the rules to be consistent with one or the other–you can’t have it both ways.
Also, Bud Selig was at the top of most fans shit list in 2002. The All Star game was coming right after the contraction plans and the team ownership swap.
I agree with this. I hate the fact that a team can win 115 games and has nothing to show for it other than a gaudy record if their league loses the meaningless AS game. That’s provided the 115 game winner advances to the WS of course.
Sorry about that, my reply was unfairly snarky. I was in a hurry and typed out my initial thought. Normally I self-edit better.
PRR, I don’t really like your idea, but it is interesting. I find the idea of one squad having an extra 7 players distasteful, but that is the extent of my argument against it.
I already mentioned how one league will run better than the other for periods of time and thus it gives an unfair advantage to a team in a weak division and league over other teams with the unbalanced schedules. That would be the main objection.
Even if the game otherwise counts for nothing? I can see your point, but if there isn’t anything at stake I don’t see how gambling laws would interfere. If a bunch of ball players went to the park and played softball and put money on the outcome, would there be gambling issues there?
This is an organized game played by professional athletes, not a game played by friends in the park. I don’t know how the laws work, but I am confident that even if it’s an exhibition, it would still qualify as a professional sporting event- and amateur events are still covered as far as I can tell.
It’s got one rather enormous flaw:
At least at a glance, it seems pretty obvious to me that the majority - the very substantial majority - of All-Stars have a chance of being in the playoffs. Most teams in mid-July are still within striking distance of the playoffs, and of course the better teams are more presented among All-Stars.
Take the American League. Of 14 teams, I’d argue that all nine teams at .500 or better are reasonable contenders. Five teams are almost certainly dead meat. Those five teams - Toronto, Baltimore, Seattle, Cleveland, and Kansas City - contributed only five All-Stars; Ichiro Suzuki, Cliff Lee, George Sherrill, Joakim Soria, and Roy Halladay. (As to the shitty-teams-shouldn’t-get-All-Star theory, of those five, only Sherrill was a doubtful selection. It’s unusual for even a bad team to have no deserving All-Stars.) That’s just five out of 32, and you’re going to have trouble convincing me those guys weren’t playing their best.
The only way this could be true is if a great team were to have its league lose the All-Star game, then get to the World Series and lose the Series in Game 7 - if they lose in fewer games than that, home field advantage had nothing to do with it, since prior to Game 7 the team with the home field advantage cannot win the series having played more games in its own park. What are the odds a legitimately great team will lose the World Series in Game 7 to a clearly inferior team?
As near as I can tell, this has never happened in the entire history of baseball. The only team to win more than two thirds of its games and lose Game 7 on the road is the 1931 Philadelphia A’s, who were beaten by a team that was itself pretty awesome, the Cardinals. And that home field advantage was determined purely by alternating years, so how was that any more fair to the A’s?
But does that hold true anymore? Maybe regular season home/away records are bad indicators of what happens in the playoffs, but rare indeed is the team that does better on the road than at home.
And as far as “the odds a great team loses in WS game 7 to a clearly inferior opponent” under your scenario, what about the fact that it actually happens?
With the advent of the wildcard, I think rewarding a league home field in the WS due to the outcome of the AS game is a bad idea.
If no wildcard teams, then I think the relevance is less.
But I’m a Reds fan, so I may be suffering right now from baseball dementia.
Like FoieGrasIsEvil, I agree 100%.
I’d be absolutely LIVID if I was a manager and my pitcher got caught up pitching extra innings during the All-Star game. Worse yet, having your star twist an ankle or break a wrist on a check-swing. Hell…the more I think about it have it during the off-season at some warm southern park.
I don’t mind the AS game determining the WS home field, but it’s not necessary in order to avoid the dreaded tie. My suggestion is two fold, and depends on the fact that this is an exhibition game.
First, once you go into extra innings, all position players are eligible to return to the lineup. They only play 3-4 innings to begin with because it’s an exhibition, it’s stupid to lean on the “no return” rule for the same exhibition. One caveat, you only get to return once, no ins and outs allowed.
Second, the manager can select a number of pitchers (2-3?) as All Star alternates, who are only eligible to pitch in extra innings.
This allows the manager to use all the players selected during the first 9, without handcuffing the team in extra innings.
Actually, why not? It might be sort of entertaining. An “ulimited substitutions” rule would be entertaining as all get out, and while it would no longer be baseball in the purest sense, it would certainly solve these problems.
How about assigning pitchers from the Futures games to be used as the All Star alternates? I know that sounds kooky, but since your average minor league player isn’t going to be able to shut-out an All Star team for long, it would certainly abbreviate the endgame if that’s a concern.
I like this, and it’s what I was thinking as I tried to stay awake and watch the end of the game.
I love this idea. The kids would get a kick out of it and it should end the game swiftly. If it didn’t, it would still be a good story to watch unfold.
I also like the idea of players being put back in, in case of injuries or extra innings.
I think this solution would make almost everyone happy.
I like your first suggestion of re-entering the game once in extra innings, but this one would be tough to swallow.
Baseball is played pretty much every single day for six months. Even their “days off” aren’t days off. They’re travel days. I think you’d have a hard time getting 2-3 players to give up one of the extremely few days they’re going to have to relax and spend with their family at the off chance the game goes into extra innings and only then they MIGHT get to play.
I can see one big problem here. Late innings and Bonds (assume he still plays and is an all-star) pinch hits and hits a game tying home run!!!
Then he leaves the game, and pinch hits for the next guy! and the next guy! and the next guy! We are treated to constant Bonds every at bat, and due to the unlimited substitutions, all of the other players can “re-enter” the game as well and stay in their positions.