Rangers shortstop Michael Young finally put the coaches and players out of their misery late Tuesday night when his sacrifice fly scored the game-winning run in the 15th inning of the MLB All-Star Game. By the time the American League won the game, it was almost 2 a.m. Eastern time.
The game never should have gotten that far. The show had to go on though. After all, this one counts (sarcasm). This one game determines who gets home field advantage in the World Series.
God forbid something like overall record or some sort of merit-based thing decide who gets home field. But that's an old argument, and there is no sense in beating a dead horse.
FOX probably raked in a lot of revenue from the five-hour-long game, and that probably made commissioner Bud Selig very happy. His All-Star Game is the only legitimate one out of all of them because his actually decides something.
In the end though, all major sports All-Star Games are a joke. They are just a dog-and-pony show for TV revenue and are a way to get fans involved and honor athletes.
Perhaps pro sports should look to what the NCAA does to reward "All-Stars."
College sports give players honors like first-team All Conference and first-team All America, but they never make these players play in an actual All-Star Game. A player can add the honor to his list of accomplishments and it can give fans and coaches something to cheer about, but they never have to play in an actual game and risk ruining their careers with an injury.
Sure, there's the senior bowl, but that's after the season and only for seniors. You don't see star freshman players playing in rookie All-Star Games or returning juniors jeopardizing their health by playing in an All-Star Game. There's also the East/West Shrine game, but that game is more of a charity game than an All-Star Game.
Basketball and baseball have the All-Star Game in the middle of the year, so one of their excuses for having it is to give the players a break. Why not just give them a break anyway? These players could use a week off from the grueling season. It would give a player like Alex Rodriguez more time with Madonna, er, his family.
The best example of why All-Star Games need to stop stems from all the way back in 1970. Folks should have learned a lesson then and there.
Ray Fosse was a young up-and-coming player who made the All-Star team after hitting 16 home runs in the first half of the season that year at the age of 23.
With the game tied at four, Pete Rose rounded third after a single and headed home to give the national league the lead. Fosse fielded the throw from the outfield on the third base line to try and tag Rose out. Rose bowled Fosse over at home to win the game for the NL and left Fosse with a fractured bone in his left shoulder that he would never recover from.
Fosse never hit more than 12 home runs in a season after that and had constant shoulder pain.
If last night's game would have gone on past 15 innings, who knows who the next Fosse story would be?
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