5 comments Bill Plaschke Wants To Fix An Injustice

No All-Star Game would be the same without some manufactured controversy and sportswriters are glad to oblige. Bill Plaschke has written an article and thinks Stephen Strasburg had to make the All-Star Game. I have been surprised this year much of the focus in the pre-All-Star Game writing hasn't focused on how the game shouldn't be what decides homefield advantage in the World Series, but has focused on whether Stephen Strasburg deserves to be in the All-Star Game or not. Plaschke jumps on this bandwagon.

It's not a Most Valuable Player game. It's not a Best Statistical Player game.

The fan voting is a popularity contest and then the managers' choices are based on which player has the best statistics in each league. That's the purpose of the All-Star Game, to get the best players in each league together to play a game. The best players can be determined by using statistics.

This hootenanny in Anaheim next week, it's an All-Star game, which means the only requirement is that participants are stars.

Completely incorrect. The only requirement to START in the All-Star Game is to have the fans like you and vote for you. The other requirement if you aren't elected to the team is that you are among the best players at your given position, as judged by the manager of the team that represented your league in the World Series last year.

Saying stars should be in the All-Star Game is what causes there to be terrible voting (like happened in the past) that lets Cal Ripken Jr. in the game when he clearly doesn't deserve it and makes the All-Star Game voting a bit of a sham when players are automatically voted in despite the fact they aren't the best player at their position.

Whose appearance will make you stop, drop and stare?

No player's appearance will do this. The days of stopping, dropping and staring are over for me. Adults shouldn't do this when it comes to seeing an athlete play in an All-Star Game.

Who will make you shout to a neighbor or phone a friend? Of all the hundreds of baseball players who have paraded across the landscape this season, who will drawn the most stares under the brightest of lights?

There's no way to measure which player gets the most stares. The All-Star Game is intended to be a reward for the best players in each league, not a game where the participants are the best players the media has built up...though it does turn into that sometimes.

Forget the studs, who are the stars?

That's one paragraph.

For me, this year there is one.

That's another paragraph.

His name is Stephen Strasburg, and if he is not on the National League All-Star team being announced Sunday, then baseball just ruined its second perfect game of the season.

Well, it sounds like the entire season is ruined then. Strasburg was not selected because Charlie Manuel wanted us to leave him alone and let him get used to the majors. This is actually a really good idea. Strasburg hasn't pitched much in the majors and I know the media really, really, really wants him to be in the All-Star Game, but they should really, really, really calm down. If Strasburg is as good as he has shown then he will make other All-Star Games. No injustice was created by not selecting him.

I don't care that the Washington Nationals pitcher has been in the big leagues only since June 5, making him the most inexperienced All-Star ever.

Charlie Manuel does care and he is the one selecting the team after the fans vote for who gets to start. It's not a terrible, world-ending decision to leave Strasburg off the team. The All-Star Game will still take place without Stephen Strasburg, just like it will take place without Jason Heyward if the boo-boo on his finger doesn't heal in time for him to play.

I care about wow.

That makes you one person who cares about "wow." Choosing an All-Star team on an intangible concept like the "wow" factor is a sure sign of idiocy.

Nobody has created more of a major league wow this season, the 21-year-old kid striking out 53 and walking 10 with a 2.45 earned-run average.

That comes to a grand total of a WPG (wow per game) of 70.2, which is the highest WPG of any pitcher in the National League. You get WPG by subtracting strikeouts from walks, dividing by ERA and then multiplying by how many times Bill Plaschke's jaw hit the floor watching the pitcher pitch.

I care about wham.

BUT I THOUGHT YOU CARED ABOUT "WOW?" WHAT OTHER FACTORS THAT CAN ALSO BE SEEN IN BUBBLE LETTERS IN A FIGHT SCENE ON THE 1960'S BATMAN TELEVISION SHOW SHOULD BE USED TO DETERMINE WHICH PLAYERS SHOULD MAKE THE ALL-STAR TEAM?

I'm looking for some Ker-pow dammit!

I care about wicked.

I don't care what Bill Plaschke cares about. I care about getting the best pitchers in each league on the same team to have an exhibition game. If Strasburg isn't one of those pitchers then my life shall go on.

I care about whoa. The inspiration for this column came when I stopped in my living room Saturday afternoon and found myself tuning to a completely ordinary televised game between the Nationals and New York Mets.

Talk about "whoa!" You mean Stephen Strasburg made you watch a baseball game that didn't involve the Dodgers? How does ESPN even allow this to happen? If Stephen Strasburg made a sportswriter interested in a baseball game being televised that should mean something. It's not like Plaschke is paid to talk about sports or anything.

I was watching, and a national audience was watching, because Stephen Strasburg is the new Tiger Woods.

Strasburg will be banging pornstars and cheating on his wife with cocktail waitresses in no time. I am sure Bill Simmons will think Strasburg's comeback ends up being significantly harder than Muhammad Ali's comeback.

I couldn't take my eyes off the kid. The Nationals didn't score for him again — they have scored one run for him in his last four starts — so he occasionally tried too hard, giving up two runs and four hits in five innings.

It's not that Strasburg is a fallible human being or may not have pitched incredibly well...see he was just trying too hard. So it's not his fault he gave up two runs. Stephen Strasburg never pitches poorly or gives up runs, he just tries too hard.

But he was a presence, and the game was an event, and baseball needs both of those to prop up a Midsummer Classic that even the spoils of home-field advantage in the World Series haven't much helped.

The one inning that Strasburg pitches in the All-Star will fix everything! Cancer will be cured! The crippled will walk again! Bill Plascke will retire and never write another column!

I think it would have been funny if Charlie Manuel had started Strasburg and then had him pitch eight or nine innings just to run his innings count up and freak the Nationals out.

For one night, Strasburg could bring all that back. He doesn't lead the league in wins — he has only two — but he will lead the game in camera flashes. He will lead the game in buzz.

So basically Strasburg will get all of the hype that he may or may not deserve after 5-6 starts in the majors if he pitches in the All-Star Game? Will he be ignored by the media because he didn't make the team?

In an online debate, the Tribune Co. polled four baseball writers about the possibility of Strasburg playing in the All-Star game. Not surprisingly, three of them disagreed with me.

This is not surprising to Bill Plaschke because even he knows his incredibly strong position that Stephen Strasburg could save the All-Star Game is ludicrous and has no factual basis.

Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune wrote, "It would be fun for everyone if he were there, but fair is fair."

Fair to whom? Maybe it's not fair to the players, but it's not their game. So maybe San Diego's Clayton Richard or St. Louis's Jaime Garcia are left off the team to make room for Strasburg. No offense to those emerging talents, but so what?

No offense to Stephen Strasburg, but so what if he is left off the All-Star Game roster? Richard or Garcia may not have the fan base or the hype Strasburg has, but they have pitched well and may actually deserve to be in the All-Star Game too. Someone has to be left off, so the guy who has made half the starts of the other pitchers is left off the roster. So what?

Um, the original All-Star game was nothing but a publicity stunt, an event created by Arch Ward to be a one-time part of the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago. It wasn't so much a game as a carnival ride.

Pick Strasburg to the team, and it becomes one again.

The All-Star Game doesn't need to be a carnival ride. It is supposed to be an exhibition game between the best players in each league. Every year someone gets left off the roster. Really, Joey Votto is the biggest omission.

Charlie Manuel of the Philadelphia Phillies, the All-Star game manager, should just pick him as one of his 13 pitchers. And just in case Manuel isn't certain, Commissioner Bud Selig should order it.

Holy shit, seriously? I know Strasburg would increase ratings (potentially), but if he isn't one of the best pitchers in the National League as judged by Charlie Manuel, why should Bud Selig get involved? This isn't a situation of life-and-death, it is a situation of a guy being left off the All-Star Game roster. That's it. Let's all calm down and start taking some deep breaths.

Then, can you imagine? Sixth inning, Strasburg on the mound, no American League hitter has ever seen him, the greatest bats in the world fearfully hacking like Little Leaguers, memory after memory.

No American League hitter has ever seen Strasburg other than the American League hitters that play for the Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians and Kansas City Royals...all of whom Strasburg has pitched against this year so far. Strasburg has pitched against as many AL teams as NL teams because he was called up during interleague play. Way to pay attention Plaschke.

For once, baseball needs to think outside the good ol' boy network and ignore the seamheads and get this right.

So Plaschke urges baseball to think outside the good ol' boy network who presumably let players who don't deserve to be in the All-Star Game into the game because they are popular, so that a player who may not deserve to be in the All-Star Game, but is popular can make the squad?

It's an All-Star game, and Stephen Strasburg is all star.

That last sentence was all shit.

I don't particularly hate Charlie Manuel's decision to leave Strasburg off the All-Star roster. There were plenty of other deserving pitchers and Strasburg probably will benefit from not being hyped up tremendously in the media for the one inning he would pitch if he did pitch in the game.