Column: All-star game logistics need work
Published Feb. 5, 2010
I've never been to an all-star game of any sort before, and it has always been something I would like to check off my sports to-do list. It is, ideally, the ultimate midseason high five to the fans, snapping them out of a monotonous lull of the regular season and wishing them a "Happy Halfway Point." The NFL's Pro Bowl, held near the end of the season, is an exception.
In theory, it's a great idea, pitting the absolute regular season best of one conference against the best of the other. But I can't help but feel like somewhere along the way, it seems to have mutated more into a meaningless flashy revenue-turning afterthought rather than an actual reward for the fans.
Certain skills competitions, such as the MLB Home Run Derby and the NBA Slam Dunk Competition, garner more attention than the All-Star Game itself, and winning one of these events has grown to be almost more of an honor than being selected to the all-star roster.
For better or worse, it often means very little whichever team wins the game. MLB tried to make the all-star game meaningful by letting the winner have home field advantage in the World Series. Although this definitely ups the stakes, I don't like this idea either. Instead of having home field advantage determined by comparing the championship teams' regular season records, it is left in the hands of indeed high caliber players, the majority of which will be affected very little by the outcome. Some people are never happy.
All-star game selection processes also strike me as somewhat of a joke. It's a great gesture to let the fans have a say in the matter, but giving them/us complete control could backfire. The NFL handles it correctly by letting a mix of coaches, players and fans determine who goes to the Pro Bowl. This seems to me a more fair and accurate method of selecting deserving players than having one from each team go or solely having the fans determine the starters.
The NBA subscribes to the latter method, and it not only could potentially favor players on teams with large fan bases, but could also lead to the exclusion of some of the more statistically worthy players.
Fortunately, coaches select the reserves on the team, and the fans vote for their favorites based on each position, but any nominated player could be voted onto the starting lineup by the fans, whether the player is deserving.
Now, a little part of me thinks this is cool. If there were enough people, we could vote the worst player in the league onto the team, or the player with the funniest name, if we really wanted to mess with the system. We could vote for any player, regardless of statistics, into the starting lineup, even if he wasn't on an NBA roster three and a half months ago and has only started in half the games (that's you, Allen Iverson).
Now, I did not vote for the Pro Bowl this year, nor any all-star game for that matter, which makes it hard for me to sit here and point fingers at those who voted for some players I personally don't think deserve to go.
After thinking the matter over I've decided that I will indeed vote next year, for myself, and if you guys could vote for me, too, that would be great. After all, I've never been to an all-star game before.