Worst Place

Somebaseball pundits still argue the All-Star Game shouldn't determine home field advantage in the World Series.

It's about as late and tired as fighting for Al Gore's place in the White House.

Since the law was passed, home field advantage has mattered but once in the Fall Classic. Before that, it alternated when Series were much more competitive.

Get over it. There's about as much chance to eliminate this from the mid-summer slugfest as there is to jettison the DH.

Following a title vacancy in 1994, a "tie"  in the 2002 popularity contest, and a dodging another work stoppage that year, Bud Selig's approval rating as commissioner sunk lower than George Zimmerman's. So he turned-and-coughed, turned the exhibition into an expo and awarded home field to the winning league.

Who knew it would give writers and talk show hosts fodder for years to come?

Was Selig brilliant, or is there a dot-com-like boom of blogcasters and sports radio and TV networks running out of topics come mid-July?

Thank God Tiger Woods will take the pressure off come later this week. Tiger wins the British Open: "He's back!" Elderick loses: "Will he ever be the same?" Put two bits on it.

Selig secured flat ratings at worst for a game that would have been a mid-summer Pro Bowl performance at best and ratings sinking lower than the Stanley Cup. Home field advantage isn't going away.

If anything is killing baseball, it's these:

Geeks.

WARP: WTF?

Steroid talk: Punt. It's over.

Tim Kurkjian, Ken Rosenthal and Aaron Boone: Someone do another head count at the Lollipop Guild.

Expanded instant replay: Hey, why not make these games even longer?

Moneyball: Hey Billy Beane--win a friggin' playoff series.

Wanna fix the game? Eliminate scientific calculators. We looked forward to gym, recess and Little League to get out of class. Nobody was eager to go back inside for more pre-calc.

It's nice that nerds have found a niche to carve their ways into baseball when they couldn't play.

It just sucks for the rest of us who couldn't do either.