Eighteen Legs and Catches Fly Balls

That's the set-up to one of my favorite baseball jokes of all time-'What has eighteen legs and catches flies? A baseball team.' A knee slapper of the first order. 

The All-Star Game game is on tonight on Fox and of course, as both they and MLB have taken to saying in recent years, 'this time, it counts' because whichever league wins the game assures home field advantage for their team should they reach the World Series. I'm supposed to believe that's what all those guys are doing out there on the field, trying because it counts. Sure, big wink, whatever you say. 

As a child I remember watching TWO All-Star games every season and those guys played for blood. One year, on a grainy black and white TV while watching with my dad in his chair the afternoon game, somebody threw at Willie Mays and it really got crowded on that little tiny TV screen (baseball players fight like girls, or like girls of my age fought-not the crazed beotches these days). I cannot imagine that happening tonight. 

I wish I could say the same for Fox TV coverage of it as well as I don't dislike when they televise the NFL games mainly because I don't watch it. But I adore the ebb and flow, the game within the game, the nuance and the romance of everything to do with baseball and Fox grabs some hip-hop with auto tune music to slide underneath all the pictures, dawg, and thinks it's just off the hook. Nope, ain't dope and I can't cope. No soap. 

Even though I know Fox is NOT responsible for it, I blame them (anyway) for the Home Run Derby that aired last night as it traditionally does, the night before the All-Star Game (Fox doesn't even air it). It's simply stupid pandering. 

If we keep allowing it then Tim Duncan and Lebron James should have played H-O-R-S-E before Game Seven of the NBA finals or, changing sport deftly, moments prior to the coin flip to start Super Bowl Whatever RomanNumeralItWasThisTime, there should have been a punt, pass and kick contest with the winner getting a touchdown and point after to begin the game or a field goal and the ball to start each half. Winner's choice.

Do NOT roll your eyes at me! Of course, both of my examples are ludicrous but so, too, is the attraction the Lords of Baseball manufactured. I really can't expect any better from a management model that created the Designated Hitter, another excruciatingly stupid idea created by people who secretly hate baseball and want to kill it. And I'm not just saying that because the best DH in baseball, David Ortiz, will never, ever, wear Yankees' pinstripes, but, yeah, it does help explain my animus. 

Coverage of the All-Star Game starts at eight, Daylight Savings, tonight on Fox and goes until somebody wins unless the two teams run out of pitchers. Then we play pinata with Bud Selig and he'll really regret having allowed designated hitters into the game. Spikes out! 
-bill kenny