The Greatest All-Star Week in Sports

No Ohtani? No Judge? No problem.

Even without the two biggest stars in the sport, Major League Baseball continues to prove why it has the single greatest All-Star game in American pro sports. Hell, MLB continues to prove why it has the single greatest All-Star week in American pro sports.

The festivities started in earnest on Monday night at the Home Run Derby. To be fair, outside of Bryce Harper (and to a lesser extent, Kyle Schwarber), this year’s eight-man field didn’t have the kind of star-power we have come to expect over the years, but that didn’t even matter. Why? The answer is two-fold.

First, the shift from a timed format to a swing-based format was a rousing success. That’s not to say the timer format was necessarily bad, but part of the appeal of the Derby is the anticipation that steadily builds between dingers. Nobody wants to see a guy just hack away rapid fire trying to get as many swings in as possible; we’d rather see him take his time, swing away, and admire his work as the ball flies into the bleachers. On Monday night, you could feel the tension building inside the stadium as Jordan Walker cranked out homer after homer en route to a comeback win over Schwarber in the final. You wouldn’t have gotten the kind of drama under the timed

format.

Second, unlike the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, the stars have historically always come out to play at the Derby. Mark McGwire, Ken Griffey Jr, Frank Thomas, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, David Ortiz, Aaron Judge and Harper have all won the competition, while Miguel Cabrera, Albert Pujols, Jim Thome and Ohtani have all at least entered the fray. In the NBA, however, ever since LeBron James decided over 20 years ago that the exhibition was beneath him, the Dunk Contest has become mostly an afterthought for the league’s brightest stars. Instead of entrants like Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Ja Morant and Anthony Edwards, we’ve been stuck with the likes of Hamidou Diallo,

Obi Toppin, Mac McClung and Keshad Johnson. For baseball, it doesn’t even matter that Harper didn’t win the Derby this year; the mere fact that he competed was enough.

As far as the All-Star Game itself, it’s been the king of exhibitions for a while now. That goes without saying. And it’s been that way long before the USA vs The World format in the NBA was introduced and the NFL’s Pro Bowl was basically cancelled. Why? Because the guys actually compete. It really is that simple. Since the pitchers know they’re unlikely to go longer than an inning and the batters know they won’t get more than two at-bats, they’re free to give their very best effort, albeit for a very brief amount of time. On Tuesday night, eleven American League pitchers combined to throw 15 strikeouts and allow just three hits in their win over National League. Why? Because they were free to throw their best stuff without fear of blowing their arms out or having to go through the order a second time. You juxtapose that with the NFL Pro Bowl where the players don’t play hard out of fear of injury and the NBA All-Star Game where the players don’t play hard out of fear of embarrassment, and it’s easy to see why MLB is running away with this one.

So, when the American League ended the night with a 4-0 victory over the National League on Tuesday, it wasn’t just a win for the AL, it was a win for baseball. And their lead in the standings over the other leagues is only getting wider.