Top Five Ways To Improve The All-Star Game

Last year at this time, we discussed the five things that make the Midsummer Classic an event worth looking forward to. Today, we examine the five ways that MLB can make it even better.

1. Include a DH at all parks
Currently, the All-Star Game goes by the same rules as interleague play. When it's in an AL stadium, teams get a designated hitter. When it's hosted by an NL team, the pitcher must bat. I doubt anyone is watching the game solely on the off chance that Jake Peavy gets to take a few hacks at the plate. As it stands now, the AL is playing a full-time DH in David Ortiz at first base while otherwise deserving teammate Kevin Youkilis will be watching from home. Since the pitcher never hits anyway unless the home team bats around in the first inning, why not just get rid of the pretense and play with the DH every year?

2. If you're selected, you must play
Almost as intriguing as guessing who will make the All-Star team is guessing which selectees will opt out because of injury, phony injury, or lack of desire. The game is all about the fans, and the fans are the ones who pay your bloated paychecks. So, give us a little bit of respect, and show up and play. Your only excuse is if you're on the DL, and even then, while someone else gets your spot, you still need to show up and be introduced before the game. Oh, and if you're a starter who gets lifted after the third inning, do us a favor and stick around till the end, okay?

3. Get rid of the one player minimum per team rule
All-Star rosters consist of 32 players. Of those 32, 29 or 30 deserve to be there. The others play for the Royals, or Pirates, or Nationals, or Devil Rays (though Carl Crawford is a bona fide selection this year). As a result, guys like Gil Meche get to call themselves All-Stars, solely because they're the least bad player on a weak team. I doubt there are many folks in Kansas City who wouldn't watch but for the chance to see Meche pitch to two batters in the bottom of the sixth.

4. Curb voter fraud
According to a report that came out yesterday, Barry Bonds earned a place in the All-Star starting lineup the same way he achieved most of his other milestones over the past six or seven years -- by cheating. A group of computer jockeys confessed to delivering 600,000 extra votes to Bonds over the waning days of the selection process. In the old days, stuffing the ballot box required amassing a whole bunch of those paper ballots in one place, getting a team of people to punch out the right holes, and shipping them back to MLB. Today, all it takes is a 20-something nerd who figures out how to write a recursive program that bypasses MLB's online security protocols in order to inject some virtual HGH into their favorite player's vote total.

5. Let someone besides Fox cover the game
Tim McCarver ranks right up there with Jerry Glanville and Joe Theismann (sure, we'll throw Bill Walton into the mix as well) as most annoying announcer ever. Joe Buck is tolerable but only when he's not being artifically overdramatic, which works out to every fourth or fifth batter. Plus, Fox is the all-time champion when it comes to gratuitous bells and whistles. Just call the game, already. I can do without Jeanne Zelasko and the contrived pre-game show. I can also do without the in-game cutaways to the studio when there isn't even another game going on with highlights to show. Why not just let Don Orsillo and the Remdawg call the game? Or at least Jon Miller and Joe Morgan from ESPN (not Chris Berman, though), who know when to give way to the actual game?