Home Run Derby

While hanging out with some friends last night, I realized I'm not a fan on the Home Run Derby. I think all of my life I convinced myself the Home Run Derby was amazing and found the idea of blasting homers 500 feet pretty marvelous. As I've gotten older I think my love for the game of baseball has increased leaps and bounds (to almost dangerously high levels), and therefore my love for the Home Run Derby has disappeared and might have been a false love in the past. I think most fans love the idea of people getting out there and hitting bombs into the night and baseball fans will always support players with flash and style who hit 40 HRs a yr at 420 feet a pop despite a 230. batting avg. The use of steroids seemed like a no brainer, with fans craving for someone to challenge all time home run records and other fans dying to have some player wallop 20 HRs in a single home run derby round, some over 500 feet. The incentive for players to use steroids is clear, more home runs, more fan appeal, more money, better chance of being known as the best ever, we get that. So now that I'm old enough to really understand baseball and what makes it great, the home run derby ruins that. The home run derby requires players to change their swing completely and do something completely different than a baseball game. Players are hitting "juiced" balls according to Dan Duquette, a member of the Red Sox personnel who said in the 1999 All Star Game the balls were definitely stuffed and easier to hit out and he thinks that hasn't stopped. Players are also hitting balls at 65 mph from 40 feet away. The marvel of a few bombs is intriguing enough for me to turn it on and have it as background, but it isn't baseball and it isn't great.

I would be happy to do away with the whole competition, because I think guys who just hit bombs are overrated and shouldn't be recognized on a big stage as much as they are. But if you are going to have the event (I highly doubt it'll ever cease to exist), then at least change the format a little so it's not a painful site to watch. I spoke to 3 friends who are big baseball enthusiasts and only 1 of them actually watched the whole thing. These are people who would watch the entirety of a pirates v nationals game just because they enjoy the game so much. The competition (if you can call it that), started at 8:30 and the second round did not begin until 10 pm. 8 contestants is far too many, period. You cannot force guys like Brandon Inge, Joe Mauer, and Adrian Gonzalez into the competition. If you made it a 4 person semi final to begin, 2 from each league, and a 2 person final, the competition would last all of 1:20 minutes and would be enjoyable almost the whole way through. Guys who are good home run hitters would likely participate instead of backing out, like Teixeira and Arod. Less people and higher talent means more enjoyable viewing for me. I wasted so much of my time watching Inge go homerless I stopped watching later when Howard and Mauer came up. MLB lost me, David Arkow, a huge baseball fan, from viewing the whole or even half of the competition. Fix it Selig and fix it fast. As you can see from this post and the last post, there is much to be done to fix the game of baseball, although it is a fantastic game.

I compared Selig and MLB to a smooth sailing ship. Selig just needs to maintain the order and take care of the minor problems that occur and the ship will coast forever, just don't shoot cannons through the boat...o wait, too late.