Just a little while ago, yours truly was watching the game between the Detroit Tigers and Texas Rangers. While I normally try my best to ignore the ads and promos between innings or during other stoppages in play during the course of a normal game -- one thing jumped out at me.
The homers of all homers announcers, Mario Impemba and Rod Allen, were urging people to vote for Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder to make the All-Star team. That in itself is fine. There's nothing wrong with asking the fans to support their home town baseball stars.
Then it happened.
Viewers were told they could vote up to 25 times a day by merely logging on to tigers.com. Consider the possible implications ----
If a fan votes via computer 25 times a day, and does it for a month, that's potentially 750 votes. It gets worse. Alternate screen names are certainly simple enough to create. Let's assume that same hard core fan had 3 additional computer identities. If they wanted to sit at their Mac or PC for a while, switching user IDs and voting, that 750 could turn into 3000 votes during the course of the same month. All from one fan.
And no matter how you slice it or dice it -- that's not only wrong, but getting dangerously close to being outright fraudulent. Let's not forget there's a whole lot of people out there who don't even HAVE a computer, but they might very well be just as ardent about baseball -- perhaps more than those who do. There's alternatives.
Some have suggested returning the All-Star voting to the players. They could vote for who they think is the best at each position, but not on anybody from their own team. Nobody knows the players better than the players themselves. Or -- many in the media could spew reams of stats from hell claiming to be better qualified to make the selections. Or -- it could be left in the hands of the fans. After all, in the end, they're the people that are paying for all of it.
It's a tough call. The players themselves might have biases and buddies here and there around the leagues, so that wouldn't be perfect. Letting the sports writers do it is a joke. Not only are they more likely to have biases, which many of them have shown over the years, they get the best seats in the house for free, up in the air-conditioned press box, while the real fans plunk down their hard earned money to sweat it out wherever they can afford to get a seat. If it starts raining, people either get wet, or head for cover under the stands. This is not a problem in the press box. Those people make a living talking a lot, but they're never right down in the nitty-gritty. If for that reason only -- All-Star voting should NOT be put in the hands of the media.
Again, the fans foot the bill for everything, so they should have a say-so. Yes, TV contracts add millions to the pot, but let's get real. They sell air time (commercials) to various people advertising their products but, in the end, the only way they recoup their investments is for the fans to buy the stuff they're advertising. It must work, because some of the contracts the TV people sign on for are mind-boggling. Billions.
No matter what, voting on line needs to be abolished. The potential for abuse is just too great. One guy sitting at home with a computer, that knows little about the players, could vote thousands of times, while another lady who saved up all month to go to one game -- gets one vote. Maybe. In some stadiums they'll pass out as many ballots as a fan wants. Ballot box stuffing in political elections is illegal, and so it should be in baseball. One fan, one vote. The current system is rife with corruption.
Personally, I think the players should decide. It would no longer be a popularity contest, nor would bigger market cities with more fans rule the day. How many times have we seen guys selected to the All-Star team that USED to be good, and are household names, get the nod over lesser known players that are clearly superior at their position? I dare say -- a lot.
Being an All-Star shouldn't be about what a player accomplished over the course of his career. It's supposed to be about who is performing the best at that position THIS year. Can anyone possibly objectively argue that? The players would know, and cast their ballots accordingly.
This would have another benefit. You've likely noticed that over the years, many players have been selected to the All-Star game, but decided not to participate. Various reasons have been offered. They need the rest. They want to spend time with their families. As a rule, these are the older players with long careers behind them (and the most ridiculous salaries still in effect), that got selected in the popularity contest I mentioned above. Been there, done that, and even if they show up, they won't play hard. Consequently, the All-Star game has become somewhat of a joke. All that might change for the better if it was truly the best of the best, especially if it involved some young guys that had never been there before, but were tearing it up in the first half of the season. Compensating them? Please. Those guys would probably pay for their own air fare and motel rooms just for the privilege of being there. Then they'd go out and play like Pete Rose used to.
And maybe, just maybe, it might be worth watching again like it was in the old days. You know, like when it actually mattered.....
No comments:
Post a Comment