The Home Run Derby

Do the rules need to change? Is it boring to watch one guy pull ahead so early on? Or is it more boring/embarrassing to watch someone win the home run derby who no one thinks of as the winner? (Really, if I were Justin Morneau, I'd put that trophy in a closet and never mention it again. If he had it on a shelf, all anyone would do is talk about Josh Hamilton.) Mind you there's nothing inherently wrong with wiping the slate clean on the final round (the way everyone starts at zero for the world series). But since the whole point of the Home Run Derby is to hit lots of home runs, why penalize someone for doing it? (If he'd lined out a few times after hitting, oh, 18, he would have probably won.)

Even stupider than the results? The ESPN announcers who annointed Hamilton as a saint and told his story over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over (and over) again. Drugs, three years off, dreamt of Home Run Derby and now in it. We get it. Old guy pitching is 71. Check.

Even stupider than the results? The ESPN team guy announcing that Josh Hamilton hitting some home runs has us all literally turning the page and putting the Mitchel Report behind us? Huh? Sports media people are wimps. Real reporters should go after the rampant cheating in baseball that has distorted the records and made the last 15 years a sham. Instead, because they practically sleep with the athletes and are too timid to ask a question that might annoy them (like, why all the cheating?), all they want to do is pretend that releasing a report and having virtually no one get punished means the scandal is behind us.

*This was posted by Michael. I think I was still logged in on his computer.*