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I hate pretense. It's something that almost ruins NCAA athletics for me. Everybody carries on like Division I athletes are amateurs, that everyone follows an archaic recruiting guidebook, that no one cheats or slips people a little money here and there. None of it's true, of course, and it's people that argue for the NCAA in comparison to, say, the NBA, that spout that convenient and annoying tripe. At least in the NBA, there is no pretense of amateurism. People are paid what the market (either rightly or wrongly) values them, something the NCAA will never do for its thousands of revenue-generating athletes. Which is all a long way of saying: I hate pretense. The same issues infect the MLB All-Star Game, making it an almost painful experience sometimes. I love the idea of the game: these are the world's best baseball players (or most of them, anyway) competing on one field one time a year. There's something special about that.
What's not special is that Major League Baseball and Bud Selig, embarrassed by the tie-game debacle in 2002, have suddenly contrived "meaning" for the game -- the league that wins gets home-field advantage for the World Series. This is supposed to make players care about playing, but has the net effect of making me care far less about the actual game.
Sorry, folks, but your average All-Star doesn't care about home-field advantage in the World Series. At least half of these guys have no chance at being part of the World Series this year; why would they play balls-out, risking injury, in a game that doesn't matter to them? The All-Star game is a break, a chance to schmooze with fellow superstars, a nice way of creating revenue for a specific club ... but it is not the hotly contested, hang-on-every-pitch experience Bud Selig wants you to think it is. Don't buy in.
Instead, focus your attention on the Home Run Derby. Everyone realizes what they're dealing with when players throw their caps on backwards and head to the plate -- the Derby is America's chance to sit back, mute Chris Berman, and watch a feat of athleticism that never, ever gets old. Players don't take it too seriously, but they try to give the fans a show. What results is the perfect balance of throwaway entertainment and celebration of baseball prowess, something the All-Star game tries to be but isn't.
So don't be fooled: the players don't care about home field advantage in the World Series. If you enjoy the game, then by all means watch. But don't believe the silly lie that the game matters in any sort of competitive sense. That's pretense at its peskiest.
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