It's Time to Change the Home-Run Derby

by user Somecheesewiththat

TV Ratings were down this year for the Home Run Derby. The Derby has become a popular source of ridicule for sports talk show hosts and others. Most of them feel it is too easy for the players, and thus an insult to them. They argue that amateurs can hit a ball out of the park in batting practice. Another one of their biggest points (and probably their best) is that it hardly means what it used to as evidenced by the fact that the biggest names won't participate in it. The guy who leads the majors in home runs this season and who very well could hit more home runs than anyone else in history before he’s done, Alex Rodriguez, refused to participate. The man who will soon hold the record for career HR’s, Barry Bonds, also declined his invite.

Players complain that the Derby fatigues them too much as there is too much sitting around. I guess athletes are not required to make sense. One really has to wonder how much an extra 50 swings of the bat can do to a guy who is supposed to be in elite shape (these are professional athletes for goodness sakes). They get paid to swing a bat for their living. These guys must swing a bat at least 5,000 times throughout the course of a season, but participating in the Home Run Derby pushes them over the edge?

Participating in the Home Run Derby did not seem to bother Ryan Howard too much last year. In 1959 there was a television show called Home Run Derby, where guys were pitted against each other for 9 innings, 3 outs per inning, with any non-home run balls hit counting as an out. The winner had to come back the next week to face a new challenger. It must not have tired them out too much as nine of them turned out to be Hall-of-Famers, and one of them, Henry Aaron, was able to overcome his derby days and play another 16 seasons. And this was without the weight training, nutrition knowledge, and “supplements” of today.

Now I could understand if my Grandpa went to the Derby, took 20 swings and complained about being sore the next day. He hasn’t swung the bat in 30 some years. But if he was still complaining 2 months later I would roll my eyes. But we buy this excuse from major leaguers?

Fear not faithful baseball fans. I know what will get both the fans and the players (or at least get the players to pretend) excited about the Home Run Derby again. Last night after the players had accrued 9 outs they brought out a gold ball. For every home run hit with this ball State Farm donated $17,000 to the Boys and Girls Club. I guess they’ve done this (but $21,000 was donated per ball) the last 3 seasons, but it was the first I have noticed it. Monday morning I thought I would tune in to the derby to see Prince Fielder, but I soon found myself standing up and cheering for every gold ball, hoping to propel it out of the park.

Soon it didn’t matter to me that I hadn’t heard of Alex Rios or that Albert Pujols played for one of the Brewer’s NL Central rivals. I was cheering as fervently as if it was Brett Favre out there. This year the Derby raised $254,000 for charity, but I think we could make it bigger. Let’s do a Homers for the Homeless, or Derby Dollars for Darfur, heck, I don’t care, ESPN could play with it a little and have it be Habitat for Humanity’s Back, Back, Back to housing code regulations. Now, I don’t want them to turn it into a petition asking the fans to donate money, there are enough of those on TV already and I don’t want it to get to the point where people are worn out by them and become immune to them (if it hasn’t gotten to that point already). But I do think you could get the fans involved. You could make it like the Campbell’s click for cans where fans have to go to a website and vote for the players to participate with each click equaling a certain amount donated to the chosen charity. How could the stars say no when the fans are asking them to help out for charity? Then MLB could find sponsors for each player. For each home run a player hits, $10,000 could be donated to the homeless shelters in the city where that person plays. Then there could be a national sponsor that donates $10,000 for every home run hit by all of the players to homeless shelters of the city hosting the All-Star game. I feel like with all baseball has put the fans through in the past 15 years with the strike-shortened season and the steroids-era they owe it to us to foot the bill on this thing. Basketball has NBA Cares and football players have the United Way, but baseball is a little behind. This could be a start for them to start doing their part to thank the fans by helping out the least fortunate in our country. I even have the perfect name, The So Sorry for the Strike and Steroids, Here’s Money for Your Shelters and Soup Kitchens, Slugfest. Then the Home Run Derby wouldn’t mean what it used to, it would mean a lot more.

This post was first published on http://somecheesewiththat.blogspot.com/