Any baseball fans on AGO?

[vobro]

Moving it to the end of the season puts into November which eliminates a majority of parks that can host. To me baseball is a game of many skills and strategies, I enjoy a well turned double play or a 10-15 pitch battle. The hr derby proves nothing to me as it's just glorified batting practice

[mk9750]

I'm from near Cleveland, so I have a few observations:

1) It WAS a huge 4 days financially for Cleveland. In addition to the dollars brought in by spectators and others, MLB left about $5 million here in the form of field improvements, mostly to fields in underprivileged areas of the city. Financially, it was huge. And the intangible benefit is another opportunity to show off Cleveland, and that's never bad. However, there is a local radio personality here who talks about Cleveland 1 and Cleveland 2. Everyone saw Cleveland 1 the last few days, and it is really quite impressive. Unfortunately, the mayor here has sacrificed Cleveland 2 in order to make Cleveland 1 a gem. He's done a great job of promoting Cleveland 1, while allowing Cleveland 2 to languish.

2) The Indians nor MLB will never connect the two officially, but the All-Star game was awarded to Cleveland, outside it's normal cycle, just days after the Indians announced it was going to dis-associate themselves from the old logo. Coincidence? I think not.

3) The home run derby has had a negative effect on most every player who has participated in it since it was started. I tried a quick search to find what I thought was a Sports Illustrated article on this, but couldn't find it, so I apologize for not being able to name my source. But I definitely have seen an article about this. The problem is that it is now a bigger draw than the All-Star game itself.

I watched it last night because it was my town. I rarely watch any of it any other year.