Night of a bunch of stars

Today, I heard sports commentators lamenting the relative lack of long balls during last night's home run derby, particularly the fact that none reached the water of McCovey's Cove. I guess the folks at ESPN were upset because they stuck anchorman Kenny Mayne out in the cove in a kayak with a helmet-cam on his head. With no balls headed his way, he had no opportunity to get into a fracas out there.

Some of the talk the past few days has implied that the home run derby is becoming the main attraction of the All-Star break, eclipsing the interest of the game, itself. I'm assuming that's a lot of hype on the part of people with a vested interest in having viewers tune in to watch the sluggers.

Frankly, the home run derby is interesting to watch for about half an hour or so. When it drags on past my bedtime ... well, I really don't care that Vlad Guerrero hit one more over the fence than Alex Rios.

Then again, the All-Star Game isn't the thrill it once was. It used to be an opportunity to see American Leaguers face National Leaguers, something that only happened otherwise in October. Now, interleague play takes up an inordinate part of the regular-season schedule, negating the All-Star impact.

The large volume of televised games also detracts from the erstwhile Midsummer Classic. When I was growing up, you could watch Saturday afternoon broadcasts featuring Curt Gowdy and Tony Kubek. And for a while, ABC did Monday night baseball, inexplicably with noted baseball nonfan Howard Cosell calling the games. Otherwise, you could tune in the Braves after Ted Turner started putting them on his cable network, but they really stunk in the '70s.

These days, we have networks televising games nationally several days of the week, and if you don't catch the contests in their entirety, you certainly can see the highlights.

What's so special about seeing Alex Rodriguez in the All-Star game when he's constantly on television, pictured in newspapers and magazines, and talked about ad infinitum on the radio.

And why would anyone want to tune in to see anything in which Barry Bonds is involved?

Oh, yeah. It counts. Home-field advantage in the World Series goes to the winner of whichever league proves victorious in the All-Star game.

Let's see ... since that went into effect in 2003, the American League has won home field each time. Since then, an AL team has won the Series twice, and the NL entry, twice.

My wife's birthday is tonight, so I'm taking her out to dinner instead of worrying about parking myself in front of the TV set. Sure, I'll probably tune in for the later stages of the game.

Just as long as Barry Bonds already has been removed for a pinch-runner.