MLB All-Star Game: If the Players Don't Care, Why Should We

As I was making my plans for this lovely 87 degree day in Chicago, after a dip in the pool, some lunch with my girlfriend and a session of my life altering P90x DVDs (I still look too much like the before picture), I figured I'd catch the MLB All-Star game.

But then I remembered the USA Network was running a Law & Order: SVU marathon. Can't get enough of Benson and Stabler.

At first I felt some weird sense of duty as a sports fan and writer to force myself to watch the Midsummer Classic. 

Hasn't watching the overly dramatic All-Star game host city promo, excruciatingly long player introductions and the inhumanly large pregame American flag (seriously couldn't we cloth the needy with that thing), become part of Americana?

Well if it is, someone forgot to tell MLB players.

Due to either "injuries" (although only four of the "injured" players are on the disabled list), other commitments or having pitched too recently to play, MLB players have used every excuse outside of the classic "the dog ate my glove," to avoid baseball's "showcase."

In some form or another, eight players have said, "Thanks, but no thanks" to baseball's summer showdown.

That number doesn't even include cases such as Cubs third baseman, Aramis Rameriz, who was notified Sunday that he had been chosen as an All-Star game replacement but rather, decided to take his three day vacation to the Dominican. 

So, if the players don't care, why should I?

Even more importantly, if major league players continue to treat the All-Star game the same way I did freshman algebra (nice, right?), isn't it almost insulting the way in which Bud Selig parades around pretending the All-Star game carries some great sense of meaning because he says so.

Attaching World Series home-field advantage to the All-Star game was a farce to begin with.

Overreacting to the 2002 tie (which looking back on, surprisingly only lasted 11 innings), Selig used a backwards approach, using the game's most important event as a gimmick to "enhance" a glorified scrimmage.

In years past, Selig's illogical concoction at least would have had the game's greatest players, deciding which league would capture home-field advantage.

In 1971, 19 Hall of Famers participated in an All-Star game, with no importance other than "league pride."

But with today's players choosing to rather set up the barbecue, an All-Star game with significant meaning will be decided by the likes of injury replacement Jordan Walden pitching to Pablo Sandoval, he of the gaudy .340 OPS and 29 RBI's.

So today I decided, instead of wasting my time watching one of the 84 2011 All-Stars, I'm going to sit back, relax and watching some great "Whodunit" TV.

Sorry Bud.