"Baseball just doesn't get it. Jason Kubel has 15 home runs and 60 RBIs, Aaron Hill has 11 and 40, Hunter Pence has 16 and 50, Aramis Ramirez has 10 and 52 and Jason Heyward has 14 and 41, just to name five players who deserve it. These guys, based on their first-half performance, must give way to a player the fans want to see in a game. It's not consistent with such a heavy reward for winning the game. Each manager really wants to pick a team he can win with, balanced and able to create the right matchups in late innings.

Harper has All-Star talent and might even display it in the game. I wouldn't put it past him to rope a double and end up on third and score the winning run by stealing home. The first one to shake his hand, of course, will be Cole Hamels....

Now Harper is Hamels' teammate, on the National League All-Star team, an eight-home run and 25-RBI All-Star, while at least five others with deserving stats won't be. Fan voting at its finest. The perfect summation for all this confusion is to say, "It is what it is." I love that line – it allows us to accept something without good reason."(Mike Schmidt).

I agree, I'm not losing any sleep over it or anything. And it's not even about Harper, it's about the voting in general. I really don't think fan voting should impact the reserve choices but apparently it did. I can see it for a retiring player like Cal, Chipper and even Schmidt himself who was voted in after retiring during the 1989 season but not for a Rookie.

Verlander might get yanked before the 1st inning is over,

Verlander got through the first inning but it was ugly.

Hey Bird, I noticed that you just made a post on a thread a few minutes ago and then all of a sudden the thread disappeared. What was the thread title if you remember? I think your post was to Ihatecal and had to do with corner outfield defense and building a team up through the middle.

fan voting should be made for the home run derby too. Instead of having captains pick them. But I agree with you. It was just pathelic this year. I also think espn should be doing the all-star game too instead of Joe Buck and tim mccarver.

Yeh, he's got me thinking about his comment that the corner outfield slots are not historically known for quality defense. I insisted good teams have good defensive outfields however, there is a ton of big names that were not really good defenders but powers at the plate and played on great teams. Interesting.

Oh....Not sure why I disappeared?????

I got myself confused there. I thought the entire thread disappeared. I hadn't realized that you were reworking your post. Never mind, I'll be alright...lol

I see that the thread is still there.

I have a feeling that, when Verlander makes his next start this weekend, he will be highly motivated to prove that his disastrous All-Star Game performance was a fluke. He'll probably rebound with a complete game shutout.

Let's see - who will the Tigers be playing this weekend?

Oh ... :(

Hope your wrong...lol

Is there actually anyone who thinks Verlander needs to prove that was a fluke?

Well, if Verlander decides to go out there this weekend and duplicate that first inning performance, secure in the knowledge that the entire baseball world will consider both the All-Star Game and any succeeding similar outings to have been flukes, it'll be OK with me. :)

Highlight of the game for me was, seeing Jones in CF and Wheats behind the plate at the sametime. This won't be the last time we see this combo in the AS game. Oh yeah, and JJ had a 1-2-3 inning.

I agree !!!!

Jones eating Kruk's ribs was the highlight of All Star weekend.