Night Owl Cards

  I've cleared my schedule and I've got snacks but I'm not expecting much from tonight's All-Star Game.   It's been exactly 50 years for me of watching the All-Star Game. For decades, my expectations were high. It was a highlight of the summer for me. And even when I got older and not as attached to the players, and MLB started tinkering with the format, I'd still remain enthusiastic and look on the bright side because of tradition and all of the games I enjoyed in the past. And it was still stars and baseball.   But I'm just not feeling it anymore. Last year's game was it for me. I tried to stay quiet but people close to me know I hated the in-game interviews -- especially multiple interviews going on at the same time -- and I really disliked the HR derby to decide the winner.   I know I'm shouting into the void. It's clear that many enjoy the changes. But I look at it as the usual failing of successful businesses, from Topps to MLB. Bigger and ...

  Fifty years ago today, Major League Baseball played the All-Star Game in Milwaukee. The National League won, 6-3 (yay!). Bill Madlock and Jon Matlack shared the MVP award. (Reggie Jackson went 1-for-3).   At the break, the Dodgers had played 92 games or 56.8% of their schedule. This season -- 50 years later -- the Dodgers reached the All-Star break having played 97 games or 59.9%. Yet I read a social media complaint just a week or two ago about how the All-Star Game -- the supposed "midsummer classic" -- takes place too late because more than half of the season has passed.   The All-Star Game hasn't shown up at the halfway point of the season in a very long time. (And we're not even close to halfway through summer).   The ASG regularly pops up on either the second or third Tuesday of July. It's been that way for decades. It doesn't matter when the season starts, or how many games have been played, the second or third Tuesday of July is when the ASG exists.  ...

  Last night, Teoscar Hernandez became the first Dodger to win Home Run Derby. As annoyed as I am by this overhyped event -- the introductions and podium standings practically made my skin crawl -- it was nice to see such a happy guy from my team survive to the end over some more-capable mashers. And, yes, I know he wouldn't have had a chance had Judge or Ohtani participated.   I am hoping that this is a good sign for tonight's All-Star Game. It's my birthday again today and for just the third time ever the All-Star Game is on my birthday.   This pretty much makes it the best day ever. Sure, the ASG does dumb things these days like putting players in weird uniforms, canceling out one of the best aspects of the ASG for the first 50-plus years of my life. But I will always love the Mid-Summer Classic, despite all the modern poop-and-circumstance.   This is such a special convergence that I know quite a bit about the first two All-Star Games on my birthday. And neither...

One of the most quoted lines in the movie "Moneyball" is when the Ron Washington character says to the Scott Hatteberg character, about playing first base, that "it's incredibly hard." That line resonates because: 1. Washington is using blunt terms to cut through the BS that Billy Beane is attempting to lay on a reluctant Hatteberg in order to get him to sign and play first. 2. Baseball is hard. We want it to be hard. We watch it because it's hard. We know it's hard because we played it and at some point, long before getting even close to a pro career, we gave it up because it was too hard. Also we know it's hard because people in major league baseball say it's hard all the time. Sometimes a player will say about some superstar, "He makes it look easy." Implied in that phrase is that for the rest of them, a whole bunch of them, the game is freaking hard . This brings me to the Home Run Derby. I didn't watch it. I haven...

  It's fortunate for me that the All-Star Game is a week later than usual because I figured I'd end up working it this time around due to staff scheduling issues. I didn't know until maybe a month or so ago that the game was on the third Tuesday of the month rather than the usual second Tuesday. Score! I get to watch! Now, I know the ASG isn't like it was in the good ol' days, I've been over that many, many times. I expect to be annoyed by the various dog-and-pony shows that have infected the event the last few years and I also expect to hear "can you repeat that, I didn't hear that," and "oh we lost him" several times during the rampant in-game, on-the-field interviews. But, never mind that. I still love the idea . And we're back at Dodger Stadium, for the first time since I was ... (*checks calendar*) ... 14! Here's a little better perspective for you: In the 1980 All-Star Game program, the Los Angeles Times' John Hall wrote...