The MLB All-Star Game counts: Get over it media whores!

Another year rolls around and another slew of columns telling us that Major League Baseball needs to abolish tying World Series home field advantage to the All-Star Game has come around.

It's the same lame arguments. “It’s an exhibition game,” rookie Atlanta Braves closer, Craig Kimbrel said. Naturally, writers will latch on to those key words while overlooking the fact that if it were an 'exhibition game' then nothing would be on the line right?

For the sake of fans, it has been decided. It's that simple. That's what the fans want and all these ideologues need to shut their pie holes already.

Quibblo.com has ran a poll on this very issue. Forty-five percent of voters like the All-Star game stakes, 29 percent do not, 19 percent don't care, and 6 percent do not care. There was no lead article swaying opinion. No talking head giving marching orders. It was just a random question and it gave people the chance to think for themselves and answer the damn question.

Shots Heard went to another site that had a bleeding heart story on Game 7's deciding the World Series. Then fans were polled on whether the All Star Game should decide home field advantage. Inevitably the vote was 65 percent against.

It is easy to create artificial intensity and face value opinions. That is why the Disney Sports Network clubs us over the head with this junk every year. Instead of embracing the system, what the fans want, they just keep with this tired storyline in the hopes of garnering extra viewership.

The all-star game counts. We constantly hear the excitement of players who embrace it. We don't have to watch a bunch of overpaid athletes dog it anymore (like was happening). And let's be honest. That is what was happening. Naturally we get the 'Oh we're professionals, we've always taken this serious' nonsense quotes. But really, those games were starting to resemble fifth grade PE games in which everyone gets a turn and the score of the game had become secondary.

But the media whores will use any tired argument that they can find. When Atlanta Braves pitcher, Jair Jurrjens pointed out that All-Star games had more intensity, Yahoo apologist, Jeff Passan's answer was 'Oh was Charlie Hustle (Pete Rose) dogging it when he barreled over the catcher in 1970.

Would you listen to yourself Passan? 1970? That's how far you have to go back to find a supposedly inspired play? Were you even born yet? And come to think about it, in lieu of that many inspiring all-star moments, the media has clubbed us over the head with that play for decades.

And Shots Heard has news for you Passan. Rose did not barrel over that catcher, Ray Fosse and ruin his career because he was that worried about the run and the 'exhibition' win. He did it because he was a dick and he knew useful idiots would glorify him for it.

Rose was going to easily beat the ball and he could have just slid or simply found his way around him. But in Rose's neanderthal mind, Fosse was blocking the plate. It did not matter to him if the game was an 'exhibition.'

And as long as we're on the subject, Shots Heard is going to give a special shout-out to MLB for obviously pulling all Youtube videos that involve that Rose/Fosse play. MLB clearly wanted a monopoly on that video for the sake of pimping their 2011 All-Star game in this video. So videos had to be pulled for MLB's propaganda piece coud receive a whole 2,135 hits? Nice one, geniuses.

Passan also argued, if the game means so much, how could Derek Jeter be sitting out with the lame excuse of exhaustion?

Really? You really want to play that angle Passan?

Well. Okay. Let's look at the core issues then.

First off, Derek Jeter is not the hero that the media paints him to be. You'll remember that in the wake of the steroid controversy, Jeter was not condemning the cheating A-Rods of the world. He was throwing out smoke screen arguments to justify cheaters taking their millions. So let's just remember that, before we take his words and actions in such high esteem.

Second off, even if it was just an 'exhibition,' clearly Jeter is giving the fans the finger. On Saturday, he had no problem being everybody's hero going five for five and getting his 3,000th career hit on a homerun. But all of the sudden on Tuesday, the game's media whore proclaimed 'most liked player' is saying he's too tired to play for three innings of game he plays 200 other days of the year for nine innings? 

Any story about Jeter dogging it, should be just that. Jeter is dogging it. He's bought the media whore hype that he can do no wrong. And for the record, during the all-star break, Jeter is recovering from his 'mental and physical exhaustion' by hanging out with his girlfriend in Miami.

It makes us wonder how important home field advantage really is to baseball players. It really did not mean a thing to the 05 Angels that went back to Anaheim for three games after a split in Chicago. They lost all three games and the series four to one.

And let's look at one last obvious factor. If Jeter sluffs of an All-Star game because 'it's just not important enough' and therefore 'the exhibition game should not have World Series home field advantage tied to it,' then who ultimately benefits from restoring the exhibition factor to the all-star game? Oh that's right? Jeter's New York Yankees benefit. C'Mon!

It's sort of ironic that while the media whores drone on about the system being unfair, the All-Star game has actually leveled the playing field a bit. No longer, can the New York Yankees buy home field in the World Series. In fact, that is why MLB alternated World Series home field advantage between leagues for decades!

In conclusion: STFU media whores. Fans have embraced the high stakes all-star games. We don't want to hear your constant whining and shameless attempts to broker a different reality.

Picture 1: Being the psychopath he is, Pete Rose attempts to stare down Ray Fosse after effectively ruining his career during an 'exhibition game.' (1970 All-Star Game)

Picture 2: Even stumbling as he made his final approach, Rose was going to beat the throw in plenty of time. He still decided to needlessly plow into Ray Fosse in a fit of rage. The media whores will the play as a pure testament to sport though.

Picture 3: (Minka Kelly also pictured) Derek Jeter's exhausted. Those months he gets off during the winter are not enough! He clearly needs to sit out a few innings of an All-Star Game so that he's fresh for the final seventy or so games.