2008 All-Star Game
Posted by ubelmann on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I probably wrote almost the same thing last year, but here goes nothing:
I like the All-Star Game. We get a bunch of the best players in baseball together and have them face off against each other. Any other game I watch during the rest of the year will have less star power. Now, I'm not into baseball just for the star power, but for one night every year, it's a fun little exercise.
As a fun little exercise, it seems far too easy these days to get caught up in what the All-Star Game is not:
- The ASG is not an indication of which league is better, no matter how much we might want that to be true. It never was, and it never will be.
- The All-Star teams are not exactly the 30 best players from each league. No All-Star team has ever been picked perfectly, and no All-Star team ever will be picked perfectly. (Also, the lineups are not the most optimal lineups in the history of lineup optimization. This happens every year.)
- The ASG is not about winning at all costs. No one is going to play nine innings. No one is going to pitch more than two or three innings. And that's okay, because it's an exhibition that proves nothing about anything and there's no reason it should be (or ever should have been) a win-at-all-costs affair. It's a baseball game, not WWII.
I encourage you to take the ASG for what it is and not worry too much about what the ASG isn't. I'm hoping Mauer and Morneau can get something going, I hope that Joe Nathan pitches a perfect frame, and I hope the AL wins. Even after ESPN's HR Derby coverage last night, I hope Josh Hamilton makes some noise, too, because Josh Hamilton is a damn talented player and I don't need any reason outside his talent to cheer for him.
Okay, what's the over/under on how many more times than Mauer will Captain Varitek be praised by the ESPN talking heads?
I found a lot of random stuff on sports books, but nothing for that... But if I had to pick I'd go with 4.5 as the over/under
I think I would take the over: Twice for Mauer's at-bats + one for every inning Varitek is in the game. I'm assuming he'll play at least three innings on this.
Good grief why do they have a red carpet for this? That's got to be the stupidest thing I have ever seen.
Now they have Michael Strahan and David Wells singing "New York, New York"
So far I hate everything about this.
Seriously?
Someone post when the game actually starts so I can flip it over after all the crap. (just in time to listen to the crap. Who's announcing, anyway?)
Joe C said 1st pitch at 7:39 CT.
Yeah, I read that shortly after posting. I tend to ask questions first and worry about the answers later.
Then Jeopardy! doesn't sound like your kind of game show.
Indeed, it's the opposite of that which is me.
You know what I want to see? Christian Guzman hitting an rbi triple off of Mariano Rivera to win the game for the National League.
I'm behind a Guzy triple and a shaky outing from Rivera, but I still want the AL to win. Screw the NL.
Exactly. If the Twins are going to have any chance at winning the Series, they need home field advantage.
I just dislike the NL on account of their fanbase's feelings of false moral superiority because they let pitchers hit like shit for the first 5-7 innings of their games.
If I'm the NL, I'm bunting in the first.
This starting introduction nonsense is over the top. Joe Buck sucks.
Yes, but if he keeps it up for another half-hour, I can get home to see at least the bottom of the first.
I had paused the pre-game (I have a significant issue with the national anthem. It's overused and has no meaning because of that. Also, big time sporting event national anthem singers usually suck.) and my fiancee asked me how long it is supposed to go on. I told her it could be tomorrow, for all we know.
Watching the time trials on the T de F. Does that make me a Bolshevik?
No, just an enabler.
Nothing says Yankee Stadium like Sheryl Crow.
IT'S THE LAST TIME SHE'LL EVER SING AT YANKEE STADIUM AT AN ALL-STAR GAME!!!!
And I'm missing it?!
It's almost as bad as the Bears-Colts Superbowl where every few seconds they would remind everybody that it was the first time that two African American coaches had ever faced each other in the Superbowl for the first time facing each other as two African American coaches for the first time in the Superbowl for the first time in history that two African American coaches had ever faced each other in Superbowl history for the first time.
Okay, that's enough of Buck and McCarver. Turning on the radio...
Aww...damn. Radio is feed is 10 seconds behind
Interesting...I've often found radio feeds to be ahead of television feeds. It's too bad nothing can actually be broadcast live anymore.
Has Joe Buck shut the F@#$ up yet so the game can get started?
Heads up guys, pretty soon HanRam will lead off the last All-Star Game EVER. Or something like that. It really is easy to ruin a story by just beating it well past death.
Hello, Cliff Lee has paid more dividends than Grady Sizemore???
Is Sizemore starting? Has he ever done heroin?
Should Amy Winehouse be my hero?
Did she have a dream about appearing in Yankee Stadium?
It's well beyond the content of his speech--at this point Tim McCarver just isn't good at saying words into a microphone. Fresh blood please.
Billy Packer is available.
If we're luring someone out of retirement, I pick Jim Kaat.
I agree with you
but I think he is having fun traveling America in a motorhome.
I would think he'd fit better with Joe Morgan, despite both being the "color guy". That be some serious old-man-complaining going on there.
Packer ==> Pod <== McCarver
Budweiser: The
Great Americanshitty Belgian Lager.Mauer with two putouts in the first inning! Way to call the game, Baby Jeebus!
Pretty efficient inning for Lee in the first--I think he could make it into the second!
I like the upgrade MLB did on thier GameDay feature
What did they upgrade?
you can switch the 'camera' view
and it looks sleeker than before
I have not used it in a long time
Ouch, did that hit him in the face?
Ha ha. NL can't field. [/drawing conclusions from small sample sizes]
In all seriousness, the NL has an at best defensively challenged lineup.
Or hold runners on apparantly
Sheets is filthy.
Sounds like time to wash the sheets.
And my grammar is horrible.
I wasn't going to mention it, but yeah, you should work on your conjugation.
Server failing under All-Star load levels.
Will Alex Rodriguez become a great story if he is able to overcome his divorce this year to win back-to-back MVPs?
I'll incessantly talk about it, if it makes you feel better.
Madonna kinda blows that one.
*snare kick
Madonna <<<<< Herion. He needs something better.
I dunno, is he addicted to divorces?
Now that he's tried one, maybe he'll not be able to him himself from another.
Hey Yankees fans don't like Red Sox players--that must be kind of like how Twins fans don't like the Brewers.
+1 M-I-L
But, I like the Brewers....
C'mon, Baby Jeebus!
Come on, Jeebus!
I see that the Next President of the United States, Rudy Giuliani is sitting in the front row.
Jesus Walks
Mauer working the count, trying to get the starter out of the game early.
Way to work the count, Joe! Sheets is going to have trouble going the distance now.
Joe Saunders, boo.
4.40 xFIP -- Joe Saunders
4.41 xFIP -- Carlos Silva
Saunders isn't even the second-best pitcher in his own rotation.
12 wins - Joe Saunders
4 wins - Carlos Silva
An irrefutable, stat-based argument there.
I still can't believe they went to all the trouble of re-animating George Steinbrenner's corpse just for the all star game. But then again, it is the LAST ALL STAR GAME IN YANKEE STADIUM EVER.
Wait, ever? I thought it was just the last All-Star Game in Yankee Stadium for a decade or two. Clearly this changes everything.
They didn't to a very good job of re-animating it.
How many Octobers are there again?
Two.
Every time my fiancee asks me if we have any plans for certain weekends in October, I always tell her how many October's there are. Except she doesn't get it, so I end up looking like a bigger fool than even Mr. Cook himself managed to do.
Zambrano's been pretty unimpressive himself this year. He might be primed for a Dontrelle-like decline in a year or two.
Really? 3.68 FIP, which is his best since 2005. xFIP is 4.36 but that is also better than 2006 and 2007 as well.
Even a 3.68 FIP isn't all that great. He's got a lot of mileage on that arm, his strikeouts are declining, and I'm not buying Zambrano as a control pitcher.
Cap'n DP to the rescue.
You can't hit a double play ball better than Jetes did.