MLB: 5 tasks new commissioner should prioritize

3. Fix the All-Star Game

Every baseball fan this side of Mars knows that, in 2003, Bud Selig was wrong to push through amendments bestowing the All-Star Game with more meaning than mere entertainment. That year, as you are undoubtedly aware, it was decided that, in future, the league which emerged victorious from the Midsummer Classic would gain home field advantage for its World Series representative. The concept is still as flawed as it sounds.

In the first instance, a majority would like to see the All-Star Game revert back to its role as an amusing, exciting, fairly innocuous exhibition. The advent of ubiquitous inter-league play has quelled the novelty of pitting players from disparate leagues against one another, but the child within each of us still yearns to see Puig’s outfield gymnastics or Stanton’s raw power unfettered by the perils of stress and pressure. The All-Star Game, a laconic, innocent gathering of baseball’s brightest starts, should provide that platform.

If Major League Baseball decides, against popular opinion, to keep World Series field advantage as an All-Star bounty, then we must adjust the criterion for player selection. If this thing is to be truly competitive, the rule necessitating that all thirty teams must be represented needs to be contracted. The very best squad must be assembled by each league, irrespective of team affiliations.

Ultimately, Manfred must make up his mind and fix the All-Star Game accordingly. Either he returns to its roots as a good-natured showcase, or he converts it into a competition in spirit as well as name. No more sitting on the fence.

I know which route I want to see him take.