Aren't You Glad It Counted?

Problems with All-Star Games:

• They don't count
• They are too long
• The players don't try

This year's All-Star Game:

• It counted...for something at least
  
• It was short
• The players tried

So why did it seem so flat then? The American League won 4-3 in a quick game, and you got to see Mariano Rivera close it out. It would seem to be the perfect All-Star game to watch, yet I still didn't find it that compelling. Maybe it was the fact that Lincecum and Halladay were both pretty blah to start off the game, if Lincecum struck out the first 6 guys like the guys on ESPN were saying he could do then I think I'd be intrigued from the start. Maybe it was because there were no dazzling plays? Sure there were some nice moments like Crawford's catch, but all in all nothing special. The AL scored there runs off an error and a sac fly, nothing that you talk about at the water cooler the next day at work. We watch these games to see Pujols hit a homer, watch Ichiro show off his arm in right, or see Lincecum's quirky delivery shut down the league's best players, and unfortunately we got none of that. What we did get was a nice well played game, which although was far from un-enjoyable, isn't what you want to see out of an All-Star game.