How to revitalize baseball’s All-Star Game? Bat flips

Atlanta – We need bat flips.

The swing at home to finish Tuesday’s stars match was great. Whether you adopt it as a revelation or reject it as a gadget, baseball needs more of this kind of imagination on the national scene. In the morning after the match, that’s what you’re talking about.

But baseball cannot count on a score equally every summer.

The game of stars cannot live old glories. The star match cannot prosper simply because the NFL has transformed the pro bowl into a football match and flag skills while the NBA transformed its All-Star game into a week of holidays and 48 minutes of defenseless melee.

Baseball can say that its All-Star game is the best, but the bar is as low as the final of a limbo competition. Baseball needs the best players, not the best players available, in the game. And, at a time dominated by social networks and the short duration of attention, baseball needs innovation in the interior derby – not only in a break in stars equality, but in the derby of the real house, it is its own major television event the day before the match.

The first suggestion, by Brent Rooker, the designated stars of athletics stars: “I had the idea that we will simply stick Denzel Clarke of PCA (Cubs Crow-Armstrong) and (The Athletics’). It’s a fun idea that jumped into our Home Run club a few weeks ago.

An all-in-one home derby and the skills of opposite field players who bypass their bodies in all directions to make captures worthy of highlight? It is a cool thought.

Bat Flips would be better.

The Bat Flip, formerly despised as an instrument of lack of respect, is now celebrated by the League itself. He naturally lends himself to “Have you seen him?” Young roller fans share on Instagram and Snapchat.

The first round of the Monday Home Run Derby was exhausting. It took almost two hours and the little flash it was felt forced. In addition, the sluggers you wanted to see the most – Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge – refused to participate.

“I already did it,” said the judge on Tuesday. “I don’t know what else you want from me. I think it’s time for someone else to intensify and do their thing and have fun. I love to see new faces in the game go out and do their thing.

Said Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers and Hall-Famer launcher on hold: “It’s a lot of swings, guy. It’s not easy to do. When I struck, I was tired after taking six swings. I can’t imagine doing this for three consecutive hours.

“If Shohei and Aaron judge and these guys, if they had them all in there, it would be great. You can’t expect these guys to do it every year.”

So keep the field of eight men, but divide it into two groups: four players in traditional format and four players in a competition in a tour judged not only by the number of home circuits, but with the quantity of flair that you launch your bat after each.

The veteran of the Dodgers, the launcher Clayton Kershaw, pressing gloves with his teammate Will Smith after launching in the second round during the stars match.

(Daniel Shirey / MLB photos via Getty Images)

The creative and scandalous dunks of the Slam Dunk competition of the NBA become viral. All-star bats would also do it.

“Regarding an event like the Home Run Derby, we must continue to innovate,” said Commissioner Rob Manfred. “It is fundamentally an entertainment product.”

There is an idea, Rob. Run with it.

“The game game, fundamentally, I think in the game,” said Manfred. “I think what we have to do is continue working with our best players to make sure they are there and show up in front of a fan base that is really, really important for us in the long term.”

Right now, not all the best players are there. When MLB announced the star lists, the league has selected 65 players. At the time of the match, with all the replacements for the players who withdrew, the statement of the stars was up to 81.

This meant that, for four players announced as an All-Star, one chose not to play.

“Usually, when you think that the game of stars, you probably think that the best at the time of the game at the moment will play,” said the designated French stars, Kyle Schwarber.

Sometimes they are: Tuesday, Schwarber was the most useful player, with the winning swings in the swing-off.

Schwarber and Kershaw noted that, for the most part, position players are here, and launchers have dominated the list of missing stars. The launchers throw stronger these days. They need time to recover. Tony Clark, the executive director of the players’ union, spoke of the need for players to find “the opportunities on the calendar to take a break”.

And, frankly, the game of stars does not mean almost as much for players as before the start of the interleague game 28 years ago. Winning one for the National League really meant something.

“The All-Star game then and the All-Star game are now two completely different things,” said Clark. “The requirements for the players, the journey and the logistics of their family and their support, the day of a season of 162 games is more complex and it is more difficult than ever.”

However, in 1980, when the star match was played at Dodger Stadium, the players had a free day before resuming the calendar. Today, players have two days.

And, in 1980, the fans could see the players they wanted to see. Should each team have a star representative? Yes. Should managers feel obliged to use each of these players? Certainly not.

On Tuesday, the National League used 13 launchers and the American league 11.

In 1980, each league used five launchers. Steve Stone and Bob Welch each launched (panting) three innings. The four best strikers in the American league range – Willie Randolph, Fred Lynn, Rod Carew and Reggie Jackson – each beaten at least three times.

Today’s launchers hesitate to work even a round in the star match if they launched the last weekend of the first half. So put the star match one day back on Wednesday and put the derby at home one day to Tuesday. The players would no longer have to rush for private planes on Sunday evening to go to the star match by Monday morning.

As a bonus, MLB could play the long -term match on Monday, when no other match is played, rather than in a relative invisibility because the league insists on what it says is a glass event against a complete calendar of regular season matches.

“It would be great,” said Clark, “to just have a conversation around the game of stars and talk about the game of stars and great players we have, doing it in a way that really highlights the classic of summer and really puts players in a position where they sprint to come to the game.”

And return their bats when they get here.