Posnanski has some thoughts on the All-Star Game and you need to go read them all. But here are some teasers:
Of course it’s not perfectly fair — nothing on this earth is perfectly fair except for the slice-and-choose method of dividing pie*.
*One person slices the pie, the other gets to choose which piece she wants, That — along with 90 feet between bases, grilled corn on the cob, Thunder Road and “the sea was angry that day my friends” Seinfeld — are the closest man has come to perfection.
____________________
*And for crying out loud, TV announcers, I’m not qualified to tell you how to do your jobs, but PLEASE STOP TELLING ME HOW MUCH INTENSITY THERE IS OUT THERE. Just stop it. Stop telling me that they want to win. Stop telling me that they’re really into this. I was out there. I know exactly how much intensity was out there. If you could harness all the intensity from All-Star Weekend and turn it to battery power, it would not start a single Coleco handheld football game.
____________________
Most of all: Stop telling us that the All-Star Game counts. It doesn’t count. That’s important, too. Everyone tries to romanticize the past, but the All-Star Game has NEVER counted. Pete Rose did not run over Ray Fosse because the game mattered more then. Pete Rose ran over Ray Fosse because he’s a jerk.*