Quote:
Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket
Here's a question I had last night...
At what point is an all star game a tie? Apparently there was one in the past. But if this was the longest all star game ever, what made that other one a tie...?
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There can no longer be a tie.
In the past, the ASG was purely exhibition. Nothing was gained other than bragging rights by winning. Several years ago, a game got into the 11th inning. The coaches had used almost all of their bench players (the point of the game being to let the players show off, not to manage uber-strategically). So they agreed to just end it in a tie. Since it was a meaningless game, they could walk away whenever they felt like it.
Idiot fans got pissed off. They felt ripped off somehow that there wasn't a winner, even though what they saw was exactly what they paid to see, the best 50 or so baseball players having fun and showing off.
So the league decided to experiment and make the ASG "mean something". Namely, as mentioned earlier, it decides who gets home field advantage in the World Series. Whichever league wins, the team from that leage gets the advantage come October. So now that they HAVE to have a winner, the managers can't just say, "Ooops, we've used everyone on the bench, time to call it off."
I think it's beyond stupid. What that means is:
A) Fewer players will make it into the game. With the threat of an extended game, managers have to reserve a couple players on the bench just in case.
B) Risk of injury for an exhibition game. The longer it goes, the higher the risk.
C) Even without injury, longer playing time means MLB's best players are losing a day of rest. Normally they'd play a couple innings and go chill out. But instead you end up with Russel Martin playing 10 innings.
It's an exhibition game, it should be an exhibition, not a competition. It's bogus and the fans that complained about the one that ended in a tie are idiots.