All-Star Festivities Geared Towards Fans

The Homerun Derby…Is there a better All-Star festivity than this? Hell no. What’s not to love about watching a little white baseball, wound so tight in fact that it resembles how our pants fit after Thanksgiving dinner. Watching them become flying projectiles into the summer night as we sit back in amazement and enjoy the show…Shit, the Fourth of July has nothing on this. I still don’t get why we’ve become so fond of this contest…I put myself in this same category too. Although I must make one suggestion into making this spectacular even better. All these All-Star extra curricular activities are geared towards us…The fans, no matter what sport we’re referring to. Would you look at that, I guess we [fans] do still exist after all. Yes, even the ones who are LastRow ticket holders as well. Besides the Homerun Derby contest, there isn’t really another All-Star event which quite sticks out like this one does. Sure the NFL has their own like cute events, but what’s with them being on taped delay for the most part. Plus, it’s the week right after the Super Bowl when all of us go into depression & hibernation until late July, except for coming out for a short while in late April. Though I will admit the Field Goal Kicking Contest of some sort that was televised on taped delay…The one where it was a spin off of the game H-O-R-S-E, now that was all right. Now the NBA, who the hell knows what they are thinking. They had a gem in the dunk contest, but we all found out there’s only so many ways one can watch a guy dunk a basketball until it becomes old hat. I’m not criticizing the dunkers, but for the most part everything has been seen and done and seen and done over again & again. Plus it doesn’t help when the household names are sitting in their $1000 outfits over on the sidelines. Why the hell do I want to see J.R. Smith or Josh Smith dunk. Sure the can fly with the best of them & “throw it down” like no other (How you doing Bill Walton), but unfortunately NBA doesn’t market these dudes. As we all know, the NBA is a league solely based on marketing their stars…Whether right or wrong, this is how it works. So besides Jason Richardson (no disrepect J-Rich) until Vince Carter, Kobe, LeBron, & D-Wade showcase their dunking talents, the Dunk contest should be called In a Funk contest. Hockey, well that’s real easy. Since I’m not VIP enough to get the Outdoor Life Network, I can’t really comment. Come to think of it though, these knuckleheads haven’t had an All-Star Weekend in two years, so who knows what they do? Do they even know what they do? Getting back to my suggestion on how to improve the Derby. Why not have the participants of the contests use Aluminum Bats for this event? Tell me you haven’t wondered how far Big Papi would be able to launch a rocket ship with on of these bad boys? I know, nobody would get ten outs and besides everybody would be tired by the end of the first round, right? Hey geniuses, that’s why you’d cut the outs back….Oh I don’t know, maybe limit them to six or seven outs? Okay, so the Homerun Derby record books would be rewritten, but aren’t the all records in game today being rewritten? You know as well as I know, the likelihood of there being corked bats in the Derby is very high….Well just even the playing field for a night and put on an ever bigger & better showcase. What would be the harm in this since all this is, is “Glorified Batting Practice.” If aluminum bats were allowed in the big leagues, I wonder if guys would still be juicing…Some food for thought?

Source

• LastRowSports.com

Date

Mon 07/10/06, 4:18 pm EST