All Star-Voting

The media deserves complete blame for the All-Star voting. The only reason I have ever heard that the voting won’t be changed is that the fans love to vote for All-Stars. I disagree. That’s complete crap. I think I am one of the biggest baseball fans in the world and I could care less if I could vote or not. I polled a lot of my friends (many of them being true fans) and they all said they did not care (19-0 margin). I then polled a couple of girls and their answers ranged from “It’s kind of cool, but I wouldn’t care if I couldn’t do it” to “It’s something to do at the game.” So pretty much, the people that should be voting don’t care, and the people that shouldn’t be voting, vote because it’s something to do. That right there is the biggest flaw with All-Star voting. The media completely blows out of proportion how the fans want to vote. I believe that every manager and general manager should get a vote one week before the All-Star game and that’s how you get the team. Also, you would not be able to vote for your own players.

Since that probably will not happen and the media would make a huge issue of it if it was ever brought up, I think one way to help bring the voting to more true baseball fans (or fans of that sport) is to only allow in stadium voting. Why should the whole country of Japan get to vote for Hideki Matsui just because he’s Japanese. That’s just stupid. And the same thing with Yao and China. Why should some guy’s vote from Japan who hasn’t been following the season and just wants to vote for Matsui and in the process votes for Garciaparra because he doesn’t know that he is hurt count. If places like Boston and New York are going to stuff the ballots then so be it. The percentage of true fans voting will increase enormously.

Other problems with the system is that the ballots come out to early. Who cares how someone did for the first month of the season. If we go off that, Tino Martinez would be the starting first baseman in the AL. And he was the leading vote getter for a long time because the ballots came out so damn early. The ballots will also have players on them that aren’t even in the majors any more.

I don’t like the idea of the All-Star game deciding home field advantage in the World Series. I think it should rotate the same way they had done it before, but that’s a discussion for a different day.

Say Word 1
I hate it that ESPN decided to carry Games 5, 6, and 7 as instant classics. Game 5 can qualify as an instant classic. Game 6 has no chance (read 0%) of being an instant classic and Game 7 had a decent chance (65%).

Say Word 2
You would have lost the bet for the #2 at McDonald’s as I was not aware of the great dilemma.