When I am Emperor, or, at the very least, Commissioner of Major League Baseball, one of my first orders of business will be do eradicate the mid-summer classic: the All-Star Game. There is no longer anything right about this mostly meaningless contest and so much that is wrong. What is especially galling to me is that for four days, right smack in the middle of the season, there is NO baseball to watch.

Yeah, yeah. I could the home-run derby, but honestly couldn't really care less. Go to a game early, watch batting practice. It's about as exciting as that. Cano got booed in KC? Oh well. Don't care. Really. And the game itself? Don't pretend that it counts when the players' actions give every single indication that it is not. I don't know; maybe get rid of the rule that every team has to be represented and then maybe let those teams play would at least give us some baseball.

Four days? It used to be three; one on each side of the game and that made sense. And then some teams got Thursday off too. Okay. Fine. Travel time. Scheduling conflicts whatever. But at least there was baseball on. I was considering watching a game or two from the past decade when I miss games for around two weeks each summer while running around in a desert in the middle of nowhere. It usually takes the doldrums of winter to get me to contemplate digging through the MLB archives, not perfect summer temperatures and temperament.

Great. The National League won, again. That's three years in a row that the senior circuit got home field advantage for the World Series. When I was a kid the NL always won. Then the pendulum swung to the AL and they seemingly had a lock on the game. Unlike the divisional races there seems to be some sort of parity going on. Just wished I cared.

With inter-league play, fans get to see the stars from the other league play, so a whole bunch of the "thrill" is gone. Next season, with the move from the NL to the AL of the Houston Astros and what will lead to an odd number of teams per league means that there will be inter-league play EVERY day in the MLB schedule. Thrilling indeed.

This, of course, could mean the eventual contraction of a couple of teams (unlikely) but more likely will mean two more expansion teams at some point further watering down the talent in the game. I heard Keith Hernandez state that the reason pitching is so good is solely because there are too many teams meaning too many guys in the big leagues who can't actually hit. He could be right: I can't say that he's not. But more teams will also mean more required players in the all-star game.

Unless I get my wish...

Cheers,
Brian