As I write this post, tonight’s Home Run Derby is playing on my television in the background. The Home Run Derby, in my opinion, is one of the best ideas in sports. It takes the best players and showcases them doing the only thing in baseball that’s actually intrinsically exciting (I actually love baseball, but to me the excitement of baseball mostly comes from the sport’s ability to build drama and pressure better than any other sport, as opposed to innate exhilaration that exists in many other sports simply from watching athletes perform inhuman tasks of athleticism). Moreover, they’re all having fun, and pretty much everyone is good guy; there’s competition, but it mostly takes the form of rooting for your favorite player to hit more home runs, rather than rooting against everyone else. It takes place on a night when no other major sports are being played, and it’s a great lead in to the All-Star Game. Since it started in 1985, it’s become arguably an even bigger event than the All-Star game itself. An ESPN.com poll from a couple of days ago showed that more voters were interested in the Derby than the All-Star game itself (I can’t find a link to it, but you can take my word for it (or just correct me if I’m remembering incorrectly)). Although, to be fair, that poll may be flawed, because if I remember correctly it showed that about 5% were most interested in the future stars game, which doesn’t make sense because there’s no way that a full 5% of the poll’s sample were the parents of future stars participants, who I’m pretty sure are the only one’s watching that game. Anyway, Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby: awesome, exciting, cool, fun. How could anyone not like it? Well, I’m glad I asked, because I happen to have an answer.
Quite honestly, I have found the Home Run Derby in recent years to be painfully boring—worthy of nothing more than being played in the background on mute while I attend to more pressing forms of entertainment. I feel this way despite the fact that total home runs in the event have seemed to increase as a general trend in recent years. This, however, is no coincidence; the same change that has led to more home runs has also ironically led to a more boring Home Run Derby: the participants have gotten smarter. That is to say, they’ve started taking many more pitches. Taking pitches is, of course, among the most boring things to watch in all of sports (others include pick-off attempts, challenges in football, and the entire NBA regular season and the first 46 minutes of every playoff game). I understand that the players want to win, and when there’s no penalty for taking your time, waiting for the best pitches is undeniably the best strategy. But in my defense: this shit is fucking boring! As of this very second, it is 10:10 pm. My TV guide says the Home Run Derby ended 10 minutes ago, and yet when I watch the screen, it appears we’re not even half way done with the second of three rounds. I could crank out home runs faster if I tossed a single wiffle ball to myself in my back yard and had to chase every ball on my own (and my back yard has a lot of bushes: finding that ball is not easy).
I don’t blame the players for this unfortunate development in America’s beloved Home Run Derby. The strategy behind the event has led to somewhat of a prisoner’s dilemma: everyone would be better off if everyone took less pitches, but the dominant strategy for any individual is to take as many pitches as necessary. As I stated before, as long as taking pitches is not penalized, players would be stupid not to wait for that perfect pitch. The solution, then, is simple: to some extent, they have to penalize taking pitches. I’m not saying that players shouldn’t be allowed to wait for a good pitch, but at least give them a maximum amount of pitches they’re allowed to takes per round before they start counting as outs. Either that or start counting pitches in the strike zone as outs. I don’t know which one the players would prefer, and I don’t really care, but they better do something. No one wants to watch three hours of their favorite baseball players standing still, doing nothing on a baseball diamond, except, of course, when there’s an actual game.
BV
BV
Side note: To that kid who made a sick catch in the outfield during the Derby: get over yourself. Cool: making a sick catch on national television in an albeit meaningless context, acting like an adult, and getting the adulation of all your friends who saw it when you see them the next day. Not cool: making a sick but completely meaningless catch while shagging balls for professionals playing in an only slightly less meaningful event, and then getting up and acting like your play just won your team a state championship.
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