I remember when watching baseball on Fox wasn’t such a chore. When I still liked Joe Buck and Tim McCarver was at least tolerable. Really can’t stand either one these days, which makes watching the All Star Game tough.
Since this game will probably last until midnight or so,1 I’ll just toss out some assorted baseball thoughts whilst I watch.
❖ The Boss is Dead. I should probably say something nice. But George Steinbrenner was the personification of evil when I was growing up. I only adjusted my view slightly over the years. So, too bad for his family and friends, but I refuse to reevaluate my opinion of the man.
❖ You know what really annoys me? All the gnashing of teeth a couple weeks back when MLB officially announced that the 2012 All Star Game would be in Kansas City. Maybe I’ve been under an incorrect impression my entire life, but I always thought that the All Star Game was supposed to rotate around every big league city. Yet lots of people thought it was some kind of joke that KC would host the game for the first time since 1973, kind of like the Super Bowl coming to Indy in two years. Sure, the franchise has been a joke for most of the last 25 years, but it’s still a great ballpark and, maybe just barely, still a major league franchise.
Since Kansas City’s last All Star Game, Pittsburgh and Chicago2 have hosted three games, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle, Cleveland, San Francisco, Houston, the Angels and Yankees two each. I think KC is more than deserving of the game.
❖ Speaking of the Royals, astute readers have probably noticed I haven’t written a thing about them this year, unlike last year. The second half of last season sucked the life out of me. A winter of more curious-to-stupid roster decisions kept me from getting excited during spring training. And another poor start pretty much made me not care this season.
But, it’s been a surprisingly positive year. Why? It seems like some of the minor league talent is really starting to develop. We can now, finally, realistically look a couple years down the road and think the team might finally put nine guys on the field who deserve to hold a big league roster spot.
Rany, as always, does a fine job of looking at this season and how the organization can parlay the assets they have into some more pieces to help in two years.
This fine feature from last week’s Sports Illustrated, however, should serve as a reminder that it’s never easy crawling out of such a deep hole.
And before we get too excited, remember Alex Gordon was as can’t miss as can’t miss be. Until he missed.3