Final Thoughts on the All-Star Game
Hey everyone, A Friend of Mr. Glass' here. Sip will be back with the second part of our State of the Season series here at Y2K, a midseason report card, later on today, but for now I wanted to pass along some thoughts on Murray Chass' piece today in the New York Times (link available by clicking the headline above).
The piece was of interest to me as I had originally called out Chass for commets he made in his July 11 column. In that piece, Chass had written the following:
"If there’s one viewer out there who has watched any of the past three games or plans to watch tonight because the winning league gets the World Series home-field advantage, please send me an e-mail message at mchass@nytimes.com. Include your telephone number so I can call and ask if you’re gullible about other things as well."
As Chass wrote today, "To my surprise, the idea has more support than I would have thought." (There's no word on whether he made good on his pledge to ask all affirmative responders whether they were generally gullible, but that's no matter.)
In his article today, Chass reproduces some of the messages he received from readers, and there's one that resonates with me. “A game which I never felt deserved my undivided attention, got my attention,” reader Julius Valiunas wrote.
That comment from Julius Valiunas (what a name!) basically sums up my All-Star Game experience on Tuesday.
The truth is that I hadn't watched an All-Star Game from start to finish in a really long time. I can't remember the last time I watched an entire All-Star Game (it's been at least 6 years), and I certainly can't remember ever cheering for anyone who wasn't a Met.
But both of those things happened Tuesday night. I watched every inning of the game. I was crushed when Vernon Wells nailed Alfonso Soriano at the plate. I was elated when Trevor Hoffman got the first two outs of the inning quickly, and crushed when he failed.
I'm not sure that determining home field advantage in the World Series based on the outcome of an exhibition game is fair necessarily, and I've definitely reminded myself several times that if the policy had not been implemented to begin with, 2006 would have been a year in which the American League team had home field advantage anyway.
But say this for the policy: it makes the All-Star Game matter for the fans of at least 10 teams each year. The fans of those teams may or may not give the game their undivided attention as Julius Valianus and I gave ours, but they'll be aware of the All-Star Game's outcome come October should they be so fortunate as to take home the N.L. or A.L. pennant.
Goddamn it, Hoffman.
- A.F.O.M.G.
The piece was of interest to me as I had originally called out Chass for commets he made in his July 11 column. In that piece, Chass had written the following:
"If there’s one viewer out there who has watched any of the past three games or plans to watch tonight because the winning league gets the World Series home-field advantage, please send me an e-mail message at mchass@nytimes.com. Include your telephone number so I can call and ask if you’re gullible about other things as well."
As Chass wrote today, "To my surprise, the idea has more support than I would have thought." (There's no word on whether he made good on his pledge to ask all affirmative responders whether they were generally gullible, but that's no matter.)In his article today, Chass reproduces some of the messages he received from readers, and there's one that resonates with me. “A game which I never felt deserved my undivided attention, got my attention,” reader Julius Valiunas wrote.
That comment from Julius Valiunas (what a name!) basically sums up my All-Star Game experience on Tuesday.
The truth is that I hadn't watched an All-Star Game from start to finish in a really long time. I can't remember the last time I watched an entire All-Star Game (it's been at least 6 years), and I certainly can't remember ever cheering for anyone who wasn't a Met.
But both of those things happened Tuesday night. I watched every inning of the game. I was crushed when Vernon Wells nailed Alfonso Soriano at the plate. I was elated when Trevor Hoffman got the first two outs of the inning quickly, and crushed when he failed.
I'm not sure that determining home field advantage in the World Series based on the outcome of an exhibition game is fair necessarily, and I've definitely reminded myself several times that if the policy had not been implemented to begin with, 2006 would have been a year in which the American League team had home field advantage anyway.
But say this for the policy: it makes the All-Star Game matter for the fans of at least 10 teams each year. The fans of those teams may or may not give the game their undivided attention as Julius Valianus and I gave ours, but they'll be aware of the All-Star Game's outcome come October should they be so fortunate as to take home the N.L. or A.L. pennant.
Goddamn it, Hoffman.
- A.F.O.M.G.
posted by A Friend of Mr. Glass' at 10:43 AM
2 Comments:
How much of your interest in the All Star game (full disclosure: I watched none though if I hadn't had plans I would have watched) was fueled by caring about the home field advantage versus how much was caring because the Mets had such a huge stamp on the team? My hunch is it had more to do with the latter though obviously the two are not mutually exclusive.
A fair point. I don't doubt that having 3 Mets playing in the game impacted my interest, but I don't know that that alone would have kept me watching between innings when they weren't coming to the plate. As it happened, I was glued to the screen throughout and was actively cheering for the National League.
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