An All-Star Travesty

this All-Star game continues to be a freaking joke. Tim Wakefield, the 40+ year old knuckleball pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, has been pitching in the big leagues for 17 years. Originally starting his career with the Pittsburg Pirates organization and being a corner infielder, Wake discovered he wasn't going to get to the majors playing that position. That's when he started toying with the idea of throwing the knuckleball just to find anyway he could eventually make the majors.

He came up to the major league in 1992, and initially had very good success until control problems forced him to go back to the minors in 1993. Eventually he was let go by the Pirates and was signed by the Sox in 1995. From then on, history was made.

For years, Wake quietly hung around in Boston, gaining little notoriety even in the town he pitched in. Eventually, slowly, Wake became a fan favorite and an all-time Red Sox player, and is one of the franchises favorite and most beloved players today.

For the first time in his career, he was selected to be in the All-Star game. He never got to play, and it's largely Bud Selig's fault.

This asinine idea of making this All-Star game "count" cost Wake his only likely chance at an appearance in an All-Star game. Baseball is trying to have their cake and eat it too. And when people try to do this, one thing invariably happens: They don't eat cake, they eat a steaming pile of horse dung.

First, baseball requires that all teams be represented, which is stupid if your playing a game where you should have all the best players available to play to decide an important game. Instead, a player like Ian Kinsler, who is argueably the 2nd best 2nd baseman in the American League, gets left off the roster so that Adam Jones of Baltimore so they are represented. Nothing against Jones, but Kinsler is better.

Second, as an American League (AL) fan, I am thrilled with this set-up because the AL is a superior league all the way around. The AL has won the last 12 All-Star games, that's not a fluke. The AL has the most money to spend, see the MF Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Not to mention the Angels, Texas, etc. The AL has a disproportionate number of teams when compared to the National League (NL) that are willing and able to spend money to buy the best players. This inherently makes this game to decide home field advantage incredibly unfair.

Third, by making this game as such, it causes the possibility for players like Wake who are old and likely at their only All-Star game could be skipped over and not have the chance to even play because the respective managers are afraid of having to forfeit in extra inning because they don't have enough pitchers, thus handing home field advantage to the other league in the World Series.

Fourth, and finally, baseball should go back to the alternating league having home field advantage in the World Series. With the unbalanced schedule, you could argue that choosing the home field based on win-loss record can also be unfair. A team like the Red Sox that plays in the toughest division in baseball can have a worse record than a team like the L.A. Dodgers from the NL, who is actually a worse team, because they play in an incredibly weak division.

Either way, baseball's decision on the meaning of these All-Star games is stupid and incredibly unfair. This needs to be changed back to what was original policy.