I Hate the All-Star Game

I hate the All-Star Game and all its dreary preambles. This midyear puncture in the illusion that a team is a team, a rivalry might be for real, or that the outcome of a game might be like dying. Who are these smug, slack players in their unfamiliar stripes? Who says we need a respite from the exquisite escapism of the sport itself? Any such event only serves to undermine our suspension of disbelief, to defy our faith that the balls and strikes and runs and outs are all that matter. Home run derby my ass. Good for Bonds for not participating. Worse than everything is the air of lazy bonhomie. It's like we had a baseball season and then a corporate team-building exercise broke out. Stop patting each other's asses, Yankee and Red Sock. We all know it's all a game, but do we need to have that fact be dunked in candy and swung hypnotically before our eyes?