MLB brought its annual All-Star game to Queens Tuesday night. It’s the first time the event was played in one of New York City’s new baseball venues. The primary reason new Yankee Stadium didn’t get first dibs on the prestigious affair is that the old Stadium hosted the All-Stars in that building’s final season in 2008.
No doubt it’ll land in the Bronx before too long. Minny gets it next year and Cinci the year after that. I’d think San Diego, Philly and Washington are in the mix soon with the Yankees probably sandwiched in there somewhere. Miami probably wants it but forget it.
I didn’t go to any of the All-Star game events this year. I’ve been working a lot in advance of a two-week vacation later this month but some of the more serious Met fans I know took their kids to the Fan Fest at the Javits Center and had a good time.
From the various accounts I assembled from people who went and wrote about it, the only real snafu associated with the All-Star festivities at the ballpark on Willets Point came Monday night after the Home Run Derby. A fire near the 103rd Street Station on the 7 line shut down service in both directions just about the time Cespedes was handed the keys to a new pickup truck he’ll probably never drive. The media writer Neil Best described a hectic scene as fans (many from out of town) scrambled for cabs given the uncertainty of 7 train service and confusion over alternate options for getting back to Manhattan.
Given the added incentive (instituted in 2003) to win the All-Star game (which I support), I thought Jim Leyland did a nice job balancing the need to showcase Mo with the notion he’s normally used in save situations.
I believe the Mets organization went a little over the top in its push to make Matt Harvey the NL starting pitcher. Despite two subpar starts going into the break, the Mets projected the notion Harvey won the spot without allowing Bruce Bochy the pressure-free autonomy he deserves in advance of such a contest. We may as well let the All-Star game host pick their own manager if home court gives default nods to players from the host team. Clayton Kershaw would have been the starter all things been equal based on current form. Kershaw made it know he was unhappy when Bochy claimed he picked Harvey on pure merit. The other awkward element of the Met push to make Harvey the starter was concisely stated in David Waldstein’s Tuesday Times story on the subject. Said Waldstein: “The Mets chose not to have Harvey make his last scheduled start in Pittsburgh in a game that theoretically could affect a pennant race. But they thought he was ready to throw an inning or two in a game that could help project his rising star across the baseball world.”
As it turns out, Harvey was great on the big stage against the big hitters. Harvey rid himself of the jitters after the scary errant pitch that plunked Robbie Cano. The skipped start in Pittsburgh can be rationalized by his heavy workload to date (130 innings) and the reality that this Met team isn’t going anywhere anyway.
The goose egg put up by the National Leaguers actually fits with the park. The home team at Citi Field has routinely failed to score since the place opened.
-On the Trayvon Martin verdict: Those who watch criminal trials with some regularity knew acquittal was inevitable when the state punched holes in its own narrative with unhelpful witnesses. I guess what’s most troublesome to me is that there’s zero chance a black man shooting and killing a kid named Zimmerman would have gotten away with it. There’s no invoking self-defense when black shoots white (or perhaps Hispanic, in this case). If black shoots anybody, they go directly to jail and don’t have the luxury of constructing an in-court explanation that raises so much doubt about guilt. I try to picture myself sitting on that jury, trying to follow instructions while at the same time knowing the police dispatcher advised Zimmerman to end his citizen pursuit. I guess you gotta follow instructions if you’re a juror considering murder 2 and manslaughter. But Zimmerman initiated the confrontation. And then he ended it. What happened in between is relevant but not the story here. Also: six jurors – none black. If shoe’s on other foot, does the defendant get a jury of his peers?