All-Star

Did you watch the All-Star game last night? Of course you did. Did you watch the entire All-Star game last night? Probably not.

I watched until the 11th inning was through and then I went to bed (probably because I half expected Bud to call the game and declare the NL the winners because that's the league that Milwaukee plays in).

Thoughts about the All-Star game. Most of my complaints are about Fox and not the All-Star game, but here goes. I found Joe Buck especially irritating last night. I'm not sure what it was, maybe it was because he spent most of his time not talking about baseball and it was very distracting. The whole interview with Yogi was strange because it took place right in the middle of the inning and most of the time the camera was on Yogi, Tim McCarver, and Joe Buck and not the game (I don't think we even saw every batter that inning).

The way Fox kept hyping this as the greatest assembly of baseball talent on one field, what about Fenway Park All-Star in 99? It was awesome to see, don't get me wrong, but I hate the way television hypes stuff up, it gets old really fast. Why was Wade Boggs wearing a Yankees hat? He playes first 11 years of his great career with the Red Sox and a measley 4 1/2 years with the Yanks and he chose to wear a Yankees hat. And (the last thing about Fox, I promise) all the commercial breaks. "When we come back the game gets started" and then they come back, talk for 5 minutes and go right back to commercial break without starting the game yet.

The players played a great game, and it truly looked like they were giving it their best shot. The pick-off of Milton Bradley was awesome and the tag at the plate by Russell Martin was great. Miguel Tejada made up for a lot of distaste I have for him by really, really hussling on the field (offensively and defensively).

My last complaint is for Clint Hurdle (and maybe there's more there that I don't know about), but why did the best hitting catcher in the NL not hit or even play until late, late into the game? Brian McCann has much better numbers than Geovany Soto and probably should have started. However, Soto has good numbers and deserved the spot he got, but why did it take so long to get McCann in the game?