2009 All Star Starters, Or Why The Fans Should Not Be Allowed To Vote Volume 205

American League:

C Joe Mauer - this was right.

1B Mark Texiera - Morneau has the best VORP for all AL 1Bs, was #8 for the entire league, but was third in the voting. Tex wasnt even in the top 30 for the league.

2B Dustin Pedroia - Again, Ben Zobrist was the top 2B for AL, Pedroia wasnt even on the first page of players for the stat.

SS Derek "Calm Eyes" Jeter - Jason Bartlett has a Top 5 VORP in the whole FUCKING league, but wasnt even close in voting to the most overrated player in MLB history.

3B Evan Longoria - this was right

OF Jason Bay - should be Shin Soo Choo

OF Ichiro - this was right

OF Josh Hamilton - Should be Torii Hunter. Just goes to show you what a HR Derby performance can do for fans who dont watch baseball more than one game here or there. The guy has played 35 games, hit 6 HRs, and basically has done nothing this year. Why is he an all star? Oh right, because he hit a bunch of HRs in an exhibition.

NOTE: Tim Wakefield has made it because he has 10 wins. That is fucking crap. He has an ERA at almost 5. Wins mean nothing. Absolutely nothing. What shit.

National League:

C Yadier Molina - HA! Should be McCann. Funny enough, there isnt an NL catcher in the top 60 for VORP.

1B Albert Pujols - This is a duh-level right.

2B Chase Utley - This is right

SS Hanley Ramirez - This is right

3B David Wright - should be Pablo Sandoval, who oddly did not get the nod AT ALL. Final vote my ass.

OF Ryan Braun - this is right

OF Raul Ibanez - this is right

OF Carlos Beltran - this is right

Man, they need to stop the fan voting. Half of the AL players have been vastly outperformed by other, more statistically superior players. Its crazy.

Since this game "counts" for some fucking ridiculous reason, its important to prevent the general stupidity of the fans from entering into the equation.

2009 NFL Pro Bowl Rosters Come Out Today, But Who Cares?

In baseball, the All Star rosters are important, now, and it should never, eeeeeeeeeeeeeever have been that way due to the EXHIBITION status of the game. Regardless of the above stupidity, its still pretty fun to watch. I like seeing my favorite team play, but its amazing to see the best players most popular players face off in a game.

On the other hand, we have the NFL "All Star Game" or the Pro Bowl, where players make up injuries not to go, its after the season when people are still reeling from the Super Bowl, and with no bump and run coverage, or people who care, it becomes boring. On top of all this, you still have fan voting, which means that LaDanian Tomlinson will probably still get in, despite having the worst season of his career.

Funny enough, there was even controversy about the balloting for this game that no one wants to play, as the Washington Redskins were accused of stuffing the ballot box for starting a campaign a little early on their website and games. As a result 8 of the 11 starting positions were dominated by Redskins players in the vote. In retaliation, the NFL extended some stuff and really, it boiled down to no one caring.... again. In my mind, there are only a few people that should go to the pro bowl, as we have come to find out that the non-skill players are just there because they were last year.

What do I think should be done? Well, im glad you asked! If it were me, I would do this as an All American style thing where you dont actually play a game that no one watches except in Hawaii. Instead just have a banquet there, and let everyone still get their trip.

The thing that I hate about the Pro Bowl is that when its over, so is football action for a long......... long fucking time, and that sucks ass. Sure we have the draft in May or whatever, but its still just people on a stage. Really too bad.

All-Star game

Used to be that the All-Star game marked the halfway point of the Baseball season, however, now with the lopsided schedules and overseas games, it falls well into the second half of the season statistically. Take my favorite team, the California (err...sorry, Los Angeles) Angels [of Anaheim]: entering the break they have already played 95 games, which appears to be the average for MLB teams this season. Sorry, I know I wasn't a math major, but half of 162 is 81, not 97.

While that's not a big deal, instead of being a nifty exhibition games that's usually at least fun to watch, for the past several years the MLB All-Star game "means something", because the winning league gets home field advantage for the World Series. Yeah, that's a bunch of bull-shit. Instead of going by a meaningless game played sometime during the second half of the season, perhaps MLB should give home-field advantage to the team that actually, I dunno, had a better record going into the World Series?

As a kid, you love the All-Star game, it's the annual fun event where your "dream teams" duke it out for bragging rights. Well, that's how it appears to you when you're a child anyway. Unfortunately as you grow older the veil of childhood is lifted slowly but surely. You discover that your heroes are actually human beings with foibles and faults (just read Wax Heaven to see how one man's boyhood hero has repeatedly failed him as an adult). You also discover that professional sports are no longer "games" and sometimes they aren't much fun.

To-wit: Does the All-Star game even FEATURE the best players in the league at the time? And has it ever? Sure, some years the voters will get it right, but most of the time the fan-voting is nothing more than a thinly veiled popularity contest to see who's fans can stuff the ballots the most. A fan can now vote 25 times online, not to mention you can still vote with the silly punch out chads at stadiums. At least the fan-voting is supplemented with a media-vote, and the teams themselves select the pitchers, but still, it's a pretty silly method for choosing "All-Stars." I won't bother getting into the sheer number of travesties revolving selections, and I also won't comment on the stupidity of each and every team being represented on the field, I'll leave that for others to blog about, and I'm sure they will.

I'd also like to know whatever happened to "All-Star Cards"? In older card sets, in addition to their regular card, usually each All-Star got a special second card commemorating their All-Star selection. Most of the time these cards were not worth as much as their regular issue, which can work in your favor if you're fan of HOFers from the 50's and 60's who's regular issues you cannot afford. I kind of miss the All-Star cards, in the way that you miss your first girlfriend or your first car. These aren't the latest and greatest foil refractor autographed serial numbered issue, but they were often rather nice. In fact, Topps on a regular basis used to print up glossy inserts of the All-Star team for use in their rack-packs (and you could also order a complete set through the mail). I can't remember the last time I saw a real "All-Star" card.

Oh well, I'll still tune into the game, after all, there are no other sporting events tonight worth watching.

EDIT: I apologize for the title of this post - something's wacky with my browser.