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The All-Star Game Was Pretty, Pretty Boring – Here are Some Ideas to Fix It
By Matt Schultz
Published:
We can be honest here. That wasn’t great. Didn’t have a ton of fun watching that. Pretty flat stuff.
The American League beat the National League 4-0 on Tuesday night in a game that wasn’t close and didn’t even really have any juice. The NL only notched three singles for the night, which is tied for the second-fewest ever in an ASG. No NL batter even reached second base. There were a million strikeouts. In fact, it was the most-ever strikeouts in a nine-inning All-Star Game (27). The AL’s arms were dominant. They struck out 15 batters, one short of the nine-inning record of 16. Both teams combined for just 10 hits, which is the third-fewest in All-Star Game history. There was only one extra base hit the entire game – a home run from Miguel Vargas, and that didn’t come until the eighth inning.
Boring, boring stuff. In an All-Star Game, we want action. We want clutch hits. We want questionable/exciting choices on the basepaths. We want dingers. And we got none of that.
What else? Well, from a Phillies perspective, nothing cool happened, either.
Non-Interesting Phillies Stuff That Happened
-Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Brandon Marsh combined to go 0-5 with four strikeouts.
-Christopher Sanchez got blown up for three earned runs in his one inning of play.
-Kyle Schwarber lost his earpiece and said “Fuck it” on live TV:
-Bryce Harper challenged a strike call that was pretty much right down the middle and lost:
-Jhoan Duran’s entrance was timed terribly:
Not to say everything about the experience was terrible. There was some semi-interesting Phillies stuff, too.
Semi-Interesting Phillies Stuff That Happened
-Jesus Luzardo notched a strikeout and didn’t allow a hit.
-Kyle Schwarber lost his earpiece and said “Fuck it” on TV (counts as both)
-Bryce Harper challenged a strike call that was pretty much right down the middle and lost (counts as both, I think Bryce just wanted an excuse to say something while mic’d up, that guy sure loves attention, huh).
-Jhoan Duran’s entrance was timed terribly (counts as both, made me laugh, wasn’t even close).
-Outside of the game itself, I thought the event was solid. Citizens Bank Park is a great spot for an All-Star Game. The crowd was into it. Fireworks were fun. The Sandlot video was very cool:
I guess MLB All-Star games are just tough. Pitchers are too damn good now. It’s too hard to hit the ball – but I’ve been giving this some thought. We can fix this. We just gotta get the conversation going. Allow me to start.
A Few Ideas to Get More Offense Going in the All-Star Game
-For three innings each ASG, we bring out two pitchers from a local high school to pitch so we can see some sick moonshots.
-An old man pitcher could work for this too. Maybe it’s a former pitching great, one of those guys in their 80s they bring out sometimes before games to honor them, and he just gets fucking rocked for an inning or two.
-An old man military hero could work for this as well. Full uniform, no hat, medals on, allowing seven straight homers with an average 200mph exit velocity. Could be good.
-Use different bats. Aluminum ones would kill everyone on the field/in the stands, but maybe we can make way bigger/fatter wooden bats just for this. Or maybe we cork the hell out of the regular bats. Some sort of bat solution could work.
-Make the baseball a good amount bigger. For the All-Star Game only, let’s use a ball the size of a pop-a-shot basketball.
-Move the pitcher’s mound back a good seven feet.
-Lower the pitcher’s mound to even ground.
-Lower the pitcher’s mound below even ground. Make it a small trench. Pitcher’s gotta pitch from out of a smallish hole.
-We establish a maximum speed on pitches. I follow some Wiffle Ball accounts on Instagram and they do this in some of those leagues; I think for them, the pitches can’t exceed 60 mph. So let’s do that. ASG pitchers can’t throw over 94. Then we’ll see everyone’s best junk stuff. That could be fun.
-We get some sort of distraction tactics going: The dugout can have laser pointers to shoot in pitchers’ eyes. As many as three fog machines are allowed per team, and each manager gets to decide where that team places them to best disrupt the opponent. Flocks of children can be unleashed on the field now and then. Like those Sandlot kids from yesterday on their bikes? Let’s have them ride out onto the field while Cristopher Sanchez is getting beat up. This could’ve saved the NL at least one run.
That’s all I have for now. Think there’s good stuff in there to build on. Gonna think about it some more.
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com