The Win Drought is Over
by: Ryan McKenna
I know this may be a little late, but here are my thoughts after watching the 2010 All-Star Game in Anaheim:
The National League can breathe a sigh of relief. Their drought of not posting a win at the Mid Summer Classic is over with their 3-1 win over the American League on Tuesday night. That win ended a 13 game losing streak for the National League against the American League, the last win was posted in 1996.
The ball game was very well played. I actually found that it went by very smoothly and all the players hustled on and off the field which made the game go by quicker in my opinion. The game saw some great pitching from both starters Ubaldo Jimenez and David Price to start, and one guy that I wanted to mention briefly that pitched extremely well was Florida Marlins standout Josh Johnson. Man that guy has a nasty changeup! I forget who it was that he struck out with that filthy changeup, but man oh man, can Johnson ever throw well!
There was a lot of debate as to why American League manager Joe Girardi did not use the highest paid player in the league Alex Rodriguez. There are two legitimate sides that you can take in this argument. You can take the side that says “Oh no! Maybe A-Rod was injured (Something that Girardi denied in the post-game press conference)”. Or you could take the side that says: “Girardi just didn’t use him because he wants Alex to be rested for the second half”. Or you could take my opinionated side that says “Maybe MLB should reconsider how many players they are sending to this All-Star game if you really want to see A-Rod play!” I just finished counting over 70 players that were named to both the American League and National League rosters. Ughhh, Major League Baseball, you do know that only 9 guys can play on a field at once? That is just rediculous the amount of guys that are being sent to this event. I mean, sure these players have had outstanding first halfs but really. If you were a player, would you rather sit at this event and watch, or would you rather be at home with your kids while resting for the remaining of the gruling schedule knowing that you wouldn’t have played in the game if you were there anyways! Enough of that now. I could rant forever about it.
One final thing that I wanted to mention about the All-Star game was the helmets that you were seeing on some of your favorite players. If you were paying close attention to these helmets, they are the new S100 helmets by Rawlings. David Wright was the first one to where the helmet last year after he received a concussion following a pitch to the head. Rawlings has made some nice adjustments to this helmet as it doesn’t look as bulky as it did last year and you have to look closely enough to see that they were indeed a S100 helmet. According to this Yahoo Sports post (http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=sh-allstarheat071310), 10 players in total wore this helmet and I don’t blame them. A handful of pitchers were throwing either over 100 mph or in the upper 90’s. Yikes! Good call on these players to test these helmets out as I will be the first one to tell you, head injurys are no fun.
That wraps up my speel about the All-Star game. If you got the chance to watch the All-Star game, I hope you enjoyed it! If you didn’t catch it, here are some highlights from it (http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=9915299)
Enjoy the second half everyone!