SAN DIEGO — During my halcyon days, when I gorged on so much halcyon my mom had to remove it from the larder, I loved baseball's All-Star Game.
Everybody I knew did — and most of the people I didn't. It was so good, popular, all full of stars, MLB actually had two of them — the second game ran from 1959-62 to aid players' pension funds, when they didn't make much money and had to moonlight on other jobs.
But I have fallen out of love with it. It sort of has the feel of most regular-season games.
The other all-star games feel like bad sitcoms.
The NFL's Pro Bowl is a joke and has been for decades. The NBA's is unwatchable. The NHL's? What?
And baseball's is the best of them — from Milan to Minsk — because at least defense is played.
I can't say how many players in Tuesday's game (or the more popular, of course, Home Run Derby) will make the Hall of Fame. But, just poking a random finger at the 1965 game, let's see the rosters:
Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax, Juan Marichal, Roberto Clemente, Ernie Banks, Willie Stargell, Ron Santo, Bob Gibson, Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Billy Williams, Harmon Killebrew, Al Kaline, Carl Yazstremski, Tony Olivia.
Every one a Hall of Famer. And more eventually could be. Pete Rose, excluded from Cooperstown, was there. So was Dick Allen, who belongs.
Note that Clemente and Frank Robinson, two of the greatest players of my lifetime, didn't even start.
There are some stars in this year's game, but what bothers me most isn't the caliber of athlete. It's the passion. The caring.
Bud Selig made a huge mistake when he declared the pennant winner from the winning league in the All-Star Game would host the World Series. But at least he sensed the problem. The event had lost its soul.
But it absolutely hasn't been enough to motivate players.
I firmly believe its fall began following the 1985 game, the last one Rose participated in as a player. I was in the 1981 National League's All-Star clubhouse in Montreal, and witnessed Pete working the room, going from locker to locker, pumping up his teammates.
Pete famously ran over catcher Ray Fosse in the 1970 affair, and of course was hit with flak. But it was the winning run.
"Your job is to be aggressive and win the game," Rose since has said. "If I hadn't knocked Ray Fosse on his ass, you wouldn't have known who he was."
The All-Star Game really wasn't an exhibition then. There wasn't interleague play — which I can't stand — so there was some unfamiliarity, some mystery, to it, genuine player rivalries. And making the winning side the Series host sure hasn't kissed the boo-boo and made it go away.
I know it can be a popularity contest, and there's the snub factor, but that's nothing new.
Still, fans should be allowed one vote. This isn't Florida.
Fernando Tatis Jr. received more than 100,000 All-Star votes, was the leading NL shortstop vote-getter in late June, and hasn't played a moment since crashing his motorcycle.
They should stop this. Give the millionaires a few days off, and a paperweight inscribed with what J. Peterman said to Elaine: "Thanks, for a job … done."
