The Giants only have one All-Star, and now that they're bad and injured that's fine
I am nothing if not consistent in my beliefs
When the rosters for the All-Star game were announced, the Giants were riding high. Sure, they’d just lost a couple games in Toronto, but they rebounded with an inspiring Patrick Bailey-inspired win against the Mets, and there was no reason to think the team was about to sink into an abyss.
So it was disappointing that the Giants only had one All-Star, with Camilo Doval their only representative. This was a good team with plenty of strong players. Thairo Estrada was, including defense and baserunning, the best second baseman in the NL. LaMonte Wade Jr was an OBP machine. Tyler Rogers had submarined his way into being a phenomenal reliever. JD Davis had turned himself into a complete player. Logan Webb was good again. There were options for the team.
Then the team sank into an abyss, and eh, whatever.
The thing about watching a team lose a bunch of games and look like garbage in every facet of the game is that you immediately think, Oh, no, they don’t need more than one All-Star. It’s just so dispiriting to watch a team floundering horribly that you have to wonder, what’s the point? Why should more than one of these guys be on the Best Players In The League team? If they deserved that, they’d be winning more.
And all that was before Estrada got hurt. Thairo Estrada was the most complete position player on the team this year, and though he’d been slumping when he got hit by the pitch that broke his hand, the strength of his overall play still meant that he richly deserved a trip to Seattle for All-Star fesitivities. He was not the kind of player that usually gets that nod — generally you’re looking for more of a Jeff Kent-type — but overall, he earned it.
Then the Mets broke his fucking hand, and you know what, just give ‘em all a break.
I don’t need to see San Francisco Giants in the All-Star Game this year. I need them at home, encased in bubble wrap, healing from whatever nagging injuries they’re feeling. I need them to not play extra baseball, since baseball has been very hazardous to their health over the last month or so. I need a break from being worried some stupid Met or Cardinal is going to throw some stupid pitch inside, and then the Giants will have to hope that, I don’t know, Tyler Fitzgerald is ready for the majors.
Plus, the All-Star Game is kind of…not that great? This is not a criticism of baseball’s All-Star Game, which is better than the ones the NFL or NBA put on, and no, the praise with which I am damning it could not be any fainter. But it’s not a serious game and it hasn’t been for a long time; This Time It Counts was a failed attempt to bring meaning to the game, but the core idea that it had lost that meaning was right on. In the age of nine figure contracts and players who have to treat their bodies and skills as investments, lest they miss out on life-changing money, bowling over Ray Fosse at home plate just doesn’t seem like a great idea anymore.
It also wasn’t a great idea when Pete Rose did it. He was just an incorrigible scamp!
So when you add all that together, and look at the team’s currently precarious position, why send more guys than you have to? For one thing, part of the fun of the ASG was always seeing guys in different uniforms play on the same team, and now that they all wear different versions of the official All-Star uniform, which sucks, it’s even less fun.
And so if it’s not that much fun, and the game’s not that good, and the team desperately needs its players to stay healthy, why play in the game at all? For the prestige? For the respect? I don’t need either of those things from the league. I kind of like it when nobody respects the Giants, because I think they’re at their best when they can sneak up on the league. Plus, as someone who has failed to meet high expectations many times in my life, I’ve come to distrust them. Expectations are stupid! Fuck ‘em!
All this is to say, that while I will be watching at least part of the All-Star Game, I will not be wishing that LaMonte Wade Jr was playing in it, risking making my team look stupid. I will not be mad about Tyler Rogers not pitching, at least partially because the only curse I believe in is Giants pitchers in the All-Star Game. I will not be thinking about any of that.
I will be muttering at the TV, “Oh, do you have enough Atlanta Braves? I think you could use like six more Atlanta Braves,” but that’s only because they do in fact have an excess of Atlanta Braves on the roster. Does that mean I need JD Davis replacing Austin Riley? No, though it’s not like Riley is that good.
In all, I’ve made my peace with the Giants having but one All-Star. It’s fine. It’s good. It’s better, even. Can I back that up? No. Do I even really believe it in my heart? Absolutely not. But is it something I’m telling myself to pacify strong feelings of discontent that no one respects us and we don’t have any prestige and I was lying about not caring about those things?
Who’s to say? I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. If you want someone who’s perfect, why don’t you go find any Atlanta Brave? I hear every one of them is great.
I don't think I have watched a single All-Star Game AB since the 2012 All-Star Game, which was THE SINGLE BEST ALL-STAR GAME OF ALL TIME AND SHOULD HAVE ENDED THE ALL-STAR GAME RIGHT THEN BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY THE BASEBALL GODS WILL EVEY TOP IT!!!
Also, to add to the awesomeness of that game, if you Google it right now, somehow someone accidentally switched the teams in the Google box score, and it shows the AL having won that game. AWESOME!!