As big a baseball fan as I am, I haven’t been into the All Star Game since I was a kid.  In my mind, Baseball did a trade off when it started interleague play.  Interleague play has worked (just check out attendance figures, baseball enjoys greater attendance now more than ever- even in Kansas City) but it has ruined the All Star Game.  The All Star Game used to be a nice novelty, Reggie Jackson vs. Tom Seaver, etc.  And Fox does a terrible job in broadcasting the game and I don’t like making an exhibition game where you have varying degrees of effort (and in some years, the best players opting out) count toward home field for the World Series.  Home field should be determined by best record.  Period.  Baseball could find a way to make that work, but instead chooses this television-centric method.  I didn’t see the pre-game but I am suprised to hear that it was strange.  Usually Baseball does a good job with these nostalgia events (with so many former greats, it’s hard not to).  I’m sure Bud Selig will breathe a sigh of relief now that San Francisco has had its All Star game and especially when Bonds finally breaks this record and they can turn the page.  I wonder if Baseball will make a similar effort to get Derek Jeter in next year’s All Star Game (at Yankee Stadium) as it did to get Bonds to this year’s game.

Anyway, tonight we’ll enjoy one more night, baseball free.  Everyone can recharge their batteries for the second half.  Even though my head tells me this team is done, that there will be no playoffs this year, my inner fanboy compels me to pull, pull, pull for these underachievers.  Why?  Because in the end, it’s fun.  Baseball is fun, damn it (doesn’t it sound like we’re having fun……)