All Star Game Comments

The first baseball All-Star game that I remember watching was back in 1970-- the year Pete Rose barreled over Ray Fosse to score the winning run in extra innings. Since then it's been a tradition with me to catch the game whenever possible though I've probably missed a few over the years. It's been hard to take the American League's dominance over the past few years since I'm a Braves fan, so it was especially sweet to watch the National League come out on top this time due to the batting heroics of Braves catcher Brian McCann, who ripped bases loaded double to give the good guys the win. It was a bit irritating to see McCann referred to as "relatively unknown" by the AP correspondent whose story was in this morning's Buffalo News, especially considering this was his fifth straight All-Star Game, and that he has been the best hitting catcher in the League for at least that long. But I guess for many in the national media, if you're not a Yankee, a Met, or a Red Sox (Sock?) then you're doomed to toil in obscurity no matter how good you are. That's part of what I like about the All-Star game-- unlike the network "Games of the Week," you actually get to see some other great players on a national stage, and it's gratifying when they come through big, as McCann did last night.