Friday 6/28/24
The other day I heard someone whose job it is to talk about baseball pompously declare, "To me the All-Star Game is for the best of the best." They were talking about how Jarren Duran shouldn't be an All-Star.
One can hardly be more wrong about the All-Star Game. The Hall of Fame is for the best of the best. The All-Star Game is for guys who are having nice years.
Baseball history is piled high with non-great players who participated in All-Star games and deserved to. There are different levels of honors. If everyone selected for the All-Star Game had to number among the best of the best, you wouldn't come close to filling out the rosters.
And you know what? It's cool when some guy gets that honor for that season when they might not get it again. I love that. Isn't that great? Bruce Benedict was a catcher for the Braves in the 1980s. He was a two-time All-Star. He was far from a great player. But I think it's neat that he got to be a two-time All-Star. Catcher is a hard, hard position to play. And if you make an All-Star team as the third catcher on the roster that year, good for you, I say.
I've written in these pages about Jody Davis and the monster year he had defensively behind the plate in 1986. I was a big Jody Davis fan. He was also a two-time All-Star. And he deserved it. He was a better player than Bruce Benedict, but he wasn't that good for that long. Again, catcher is such a tough position to play, and then being a standout catcher for more than a few years is something else entirely. I was excited to get to see Jody Davis in the All-Star Game. I looked forward to it. Isn't this a big part of what the baseball All-Star Game is about? (Though it would be better if they went back to having players wear their team's uniform.)
I don't think anyone who writes about baseball or whose job it is to discuss baseball is ever skilled at it. At present. How can you not know something like this if talking or writing about sports is your job?
I know the answer. It's because no one excels at anything now, and no one gets a gig because of their ability to do that thing at a high level. They got that job for totally different reasons. But still. You have to have no clue in order to make a statement like this.
