All-Star Games in all sports have lost their luster for me.
It used to be about treating the fans to an exhibition featuring players they're familiar with and players they've never seen. That was very special and exotic back in the days of mostly local tv/radio coverage and no ESPN to wrap everything up and hype it to death. And specifically for baseball, before the days of interleague play.
Now it's a great networking event for professional ball players. You've seen almost every player already.
In football, it was irrelevant because it followed the Super Bowl, and then they moved it before the SB, but none of the best players are in it as they're playing in the SB.
In pretty much every sport, no effort on defense is made. In fact, very little effort whatsoever. When Pete Rose took out Ray Fosse, it showed what every game meant to him. You'll never see it again.
All-Star games have even become secondary in other sports to the hoopla that surrounds them, like the NHL skills competition, the HR derby, dunk contest, etc, etc.
Sorry to rant, but I think the All-Star game is a concept whose time has come and gone. And it offends me that MLB makes it a "meaningful" game by adding that clause about the WS home field.
It's an exhibition, and now an irrelevant one.
/endrant
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