Live-blogging the Home Run Derby

Not.

I don't know, maybe this reveals me to be something less than a true baseball fan, but just the idea of sitting through 3 hours of ESPN puffery and hyperbole while eight players take batting practice makes me ill. I was not at home while it was taking place, but I will freely admit that there's no way I'd have watched it even if I'd been at home.

The entire All Star game concept is, I think, a thing of the past. Once upon a time, you brought the best players in the game together, praised them, and they played a real game that allowed people to see players they weren't otherwise seeing, players from the other league. But now, almost every game is available almost everywhere, the highlights are played incessantly on three or four different networks, and the level of praise is constant and ridiculous. So what we'll see tonight (and when I say "we," I don't necessarily mean myself) is a game that does not mean anything¹, played by players that we can watch any night of the week, with a busy, dumbed-down, hyped-up, overblown and hyperbolic commentary track.

No, thanks. I suspect I can find something else to do while that's taking place...



¹ - Yes, I know, it determines home field advantage for game seven of the World Series. "This time it counts!" Yawn...