All-Star Revue

In lieu of the traditional "Thoughts From the All-Star Game" type format of analyzing last night's game, I thought that we here at "We Make It Rain" would just give you the synopsis of our thoughts on the festivities as our thoughts occurred.

As background, Sinickal and I were at completely different bars in completely different states, but through the wonderful world of technology were able to have the following conversations, some of which are printed here (Who on earth knows where Hopps was during all of this). Second, some of the conversations are not exact quotations, but rather revised and massaged for mass consumption, which means that we edited some of the conversations so that inside jokes and the like make more sense to anyone who may read this.

With that being said, the thoughts and conversations are time stamped. Other sentiments are editorials on last night's festivities are interspersed. Here we go:

Great idea having all of the Hall of Famers on the field. However, the crowd is what makes this part of the "ceremony" interesting.

8:19 - Sinickal - "How about boos for the Red Sox players, and Wade Boggs wearing a Yankee hat!"

8:20 - Pepster - "We were just commenting on that. Ridiculous."

Now keep in mind, the "ridiculous" was for both parts of Sinickal's observation, the boos and Boggs' hat. At least he didn't offer the Rays the chance for him to wear their hat for $25,000.

8:22 - Sinickal - "There are 1000 Cubs standing on the field."

8:23 - Pepster - "Except Ron Santo."

Yep, I am going to hell for that one. We love Ron Santo here at We Make It Rain, and may he give much joy to anyone that watches and/or listens to a Cubs game for many, many years. I sure hope that covers it.

8:24 - Pepster - "There are 1000 Cubs fans in this bar."

Which was true. No wonder the Marlins can't draw anyone to the game (more on this later).

8:25 - Sinickal (as Willie Mays is announced) - "Do you think he is muttering 'Where is my Godson?"

8:25:41 - Pepster - "Well Played."

Like him or not, Bonds should be playing somewhere if he wants, and there is no doubt in my mind he would have been in this game.

8:33 - Sinickal - "Look, its Tony Gwynn times 3."

9:25 - Sinckal (about Yogi Berra) - "Lawrence Peter? Did you know that?"

9:26 - Pepster - "I did not."

I mean honestly, hasn't he always been Yogi? His mama call him Yogi, Imma call him Yogi.

10:08 - Sinickal (in a familiar refrain) - "It is always Jeter in big spots!"

So true. Forget about how players perform in the clutch, Jeter always happens to have an at bat in a big spot. Now that we have mentioned it, look for it and you will see. Even during the World Baseball Classic Jeter had several key at bats during the tournament. Not key because of what happened, but he is just always hitting in the most crucial situations.

10:54 - Pepster - "Girardi is warming up K-Rod. Guys I am with just called him 'the fluffer'."

What other manager would do something like that? Let me see, LaRussa - no. Torre - no. Grady Little? - Oh, sorry. This is one of the reasons why Girardi should still be in Florida. Curse you Loria, boy did you blow that situation!

11:00 - Pepster - "Having a debate over whether Tejada is 45 or 53."

11:01 - Sinickal - "He's that young?"

11:33 - Sinickal - "About time someone got thrown out," when Navarro threw out Christian Guzman.

Sometimes there does have to be some actual baseball analysis.

11:37 - Pepster - "Drew is set up nicely to be the MVP. Good thing Dempster is 'closing'. He thrives so well in that situation." [Ed. note, Dempster struck out the side in the 9th, including Drew]. Too bad he couldn't do that when he was an actual "Closer".

11:41 - Sinickal - "I just wanted Papelbon to get the loss so that we could hear the NY media tomorrow."

11:59 - Sinickal - "Your Marlins clearly had money on this game. All 3 errors and non clutch hitting. What's up with that?"

Clearly Sinickal forgot about Hanley Ramirez's 2-3 with a run scored. Wait, never mind, there goes error number 3 for Uggla.

12:31 - Sinickal - "Can a Marlin help here?"

Nope, not if you are counting on Dan Uggla.

After that - well, we pretty much got sick of the game. Hope you enjoyed the game as much as possible, given that it lasted until well after 1:00 a.m. E.D.T.

Never Surrender

Later we will have a more detailed post filled with interesting observations from the MLB All-Star Game, but for now I just wanted to write briefly (which is generally difficult for me) about the main point I took from the game: Corey Hart needs to be banned from baseball. Yes, yes I know that the Milwaukee Brewers are finally in a legitimate playoff race, and that Hart is a big part of their lineup, but he made two egregious mistakes last night.


First, and foremost, he enters the game without any sunglasses. This might be a bad pun on Canadian rocker two-hit wonder Corey Hart's song Sunglasses at Night, but shouldn't he be required to wear them. If it isn't already, this should be a law. I mean, what on earth is our Congress working on? Iraq? Gas Prices? Foreclosure Bailouts? IndyMac? Please. We are talking important stuff. Especially since this was an exhibition game.

Second, how can a young right-fielder from the heart of the good ole U.S. of A. not be able to throw out a slow-footed Canadian at the plate on an average depth fly ball to the outfield off the bat of Michael Young. Especially since right fielders are supposed to have the strongest arms. It's not like Ben Johnson and Donovan Bailey were on the base paths. I'll bet Ichiro would have thrown him out.

Perhaps the Brewer Corey Hart decided to take a little vacation during the All-Star break and replaced himself with the Canadian Corey Hart, who actually wanted his compatriot Justin Morneau to score the game-winning run.

Or, he just wanted the game to finally be done, which if this was the case, I will gladly hear his petition for reinstatement.