All-Star follies
This must be one of the stranger All-Star rosters I've seen years. Surprisingly, the fans did a whale of a job voting -- there weren't many egregious selections. (Props to St. Louis fans, who had a nice late ballot-stuffing run to get Albert Pujols into a starting spot, with the most NL votes to boot.) Everyone on the team had a legitimate claim on being on the roster, if not necessarily as the starter. It was when it got to the new-fangled process involving players and managers and finally Dusty Baker and Mike Scioscia where it got screwy.

One problem lies with the way the votes were collected by the players and managers around the league. The players/managers had to vote for a set number of players per position, much like the fans did with their ballots (one at each infield position and catcher, three outfielders, five starting pitchers, three relievers and a DH in the AL). However, they were voting almost simultaneously with the fans. So, there's a good chance that the picks of many players/managers were the same as the fans, thus it goes to a second choice that many players may not have considered.

Plus, not all players/managers are as clued into everything around them as many fans are. Some of the picks were made by just looking at the league leader stats whenever the vote was taken. That could've explained why Pedro Martinez, Mariano Rivera, Troy Percival and maybe even Sammy Sosa aren't on the team.

Locking in players by positions really hurt when you discover most of the "mandatory team rep" positions came at the pitching and outfield spots. The top picks at the infield spots got in, and that's fine -- those choices were pretty good for the most part. But players and managers were only voting for three outfielders, three relievers and five starting pitchers, yet there were five outfielders, five relievers and seven starters -- it almost tied the hands of Scioscia and Baker when it came to filling those last spots. Carrying five outfielders isn't necessarily a bad thing, but many times you had to weigh filling them with the pitching slots, especially when it came to guys like Milton Bradley, Brian Giles, Aubrey Huff, who all got screwed in favor of pitchers -- none with the same All-Star credentials as these guys.

The wacked out thing was the pitching. It's hard to pick five capable starting pitchers and realize the rest would have to come from the "mandatory" reps. And why was there a pressing need for five relievers? It seemed like that was the place for the "mandatory" guys to fill up -- Armando Benitez, Lance Carter, Mike Williams? Have you seen the numbers? Might as well give them a gas can and a match as part of the All-Star gift basket. Those picks made the Mike MacDougal selection look genius. I don't mind having middle relievers in there, either, although it's odd to think Brendan Donnelly and Shigetoshi Hasegawa are All-Stars and not Roger Clemens or Mike Mussina (1-2 in the AL in strikeouts). Although a sub-1.00 ERA will do that for you.

This current system seems to make even more enemies of the mandatory team rep rule, which I like (and one of the five remaining baseball fans that do). Some of the way the voting and filling in the gaps of the rosters makes me yearn for when Joe Torre or Bob Brenly would fill the roster with their own guys who were at least moderately deserving of a spot. I would think they would've done a better job of getting the right roster balance down while still getting the guys who have to be there.

Surprisingly, with a game that's supposed to mean home-field for the World Series, the All-Star Game seems even more watered down than usual. With the way some of the pitching was handled, this All-Star Game could take on scoring of NHL or NBA proportions.