This might not be a fair example, as I’m not a baseball guy, but I don’t remember who won last year’s All-Star game. I do remember that Prince Fielder won the home run derby, and I remember that Nelly had his first moment of semi-relevance in about 5 years by showing off some athleticism during the celebrity softball game, and I remember Josh Hamilton crushing home runs in the derby a few years back.

Turns out his bat was corked. Because it doubled as a wine bottle. Annnnd there's my shameless low-blow for the day...

So even though I’m not a huge baseball fan, there are things from their All-Star week that I do remember.

Just not the game, and in baseball it’s actually (ridiculously) a meaningful game that impacts the freakin’ World Series.

In the NBA, I’m liable to watch the slam dunk competition all the way through even though we’ve seen every dunk imaginable, just on the off-chance that someone surprises us. The 3-point contest’s lack of stars has brought it down, but even it sports one of the lasting images in the entire history of basketball–Larry Bird walking away with his index finger raised after shooting the last money ball, knowing it was going in to win the contest as soon as it left his hands.

Classic. The game itself has one or two semi-famous moments based entirely on being the going-away parties for Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. All-Star weekend has given us memorable moments and performances from otherwise little known players such as Kenny “Sky” Walker, Dee Brown and Harold Miner.

Meanwhile, the NBA All-Star game is all full of NBA stars–as its name would imply–and yet it comes up sorely lacking in the memorable moments department.

And then there was this past weekend’s Pro Bowl. It’s always been the least relevant and entertaining of the All-Star games. The players frequently skip the game due to injuries at the end of their demanding season, the guys who do play don’t want to risk injury in such a violent sport, and the whole thing comes off as wildly underwhelming. This year the NFL tried to inject some vitality into the game by moving it to one week before the Super Bowl. This resulted in none of the Super-Bowl-bound Pro Bowlers playing in the game. Coupled with the usual reasons for guys not playing, the total number of selected Pro Bowlers who didn’t show up for the game was 34; that’s over 1/3rd of the total roster needing to be replaced with guys who weren’t initially picked to play.

I think Keanu Reeves was the third-string AFC quarterback.

Falco happens to rhyme with BALCO. Coincidence? Yes, probably...

I know that all of these all-star games are supposed to be “for the fans” but that’s part of the problem. As it currently stands none of the above mentioned games are even appropriate accolades for the players anymore. Left to their own devices each league would end up voting in a couple of players who don’t deserve the honor based on the season’s performance anyway. It’s no big deal, some guys just tend to get in based on reputation, it happens. But when you factor in fan voting along with replacement players you end up with Allen Iverson starting in the NBA All-Star game despite pitiful numbers and being retired for part of the season. Fans have proven that they can’t be trusted with making meritocratic decisions. They do not need to be rewarded. They have failed.

That aside, the reward isn’t the game anyway, as demonstrated in the above examples. Apart from the youngest kids out there, fans are painfully aware of the difference between a “real” game and “who cares?” game. The real fun is in the extracurricular festivities anyway. Contests, parties, fan-zones, that’s where the entertainment is. The games that are supposed to crown the events end up being anticlimactic and dull.

I say it’s time to put the All-Star games to bed. Keep the other festivities and let the players be present for fan interaction and to reward them with being selected. Removing the need for them to actually play in the game means we won’t have replacement players, so guys like Vince Young (who I’m a fan of, fwiw) don’t make the Pro Bowl in a year where they didn’t start for over a third of the season.

All-Star games had a good run (well, not really, that’s kind of the whole point of what I’ve written here), but now it’s time to move on. Of course, as I write this the ratings emerge to let us know that 12.3 million people watched the Pro Bowl, so you might not agree…