>>>I normally skip all All Star games and related activities. Last night I decided to watch just because Ryan Braun was in it. I thought it was pretty dull and turned it off after Braun's turn. (He advanced to the second round and that was as far as he went). Checking the sports news this morning I see I turned it off at exactly the wrong time, right before Josh Hamilton brought down the house with 28 homers in his first round. The leader until then had 8. Ironically, Hamilton lost at the end to Justin Morneau, who isn't even really a home run hitter.
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>>I watched while doing other stuff. Hamilton was impressive and the back story is fairly interesting. I didn't watch the final and am surprised that he didn't win in the end.
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>>I though the most interesting comment of the night was from one of the TV guys who pointed out that they had 8 white guys in the derby, even though a rather large percentage of recent winners are Hispanic. It really was a weird selection, since a lot of those guys aren't really home run hitters.
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>>It's also been pointed out in the media here that Ryan Howard is the first guy leading the league in homers and RBI's at the All-Star not to be on the team since sometime in the 30's.
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>I don't think you were suggesting that racism kept him off the team. His .220 batting average and being on pace to shatter his own strikeouts record probably had something to do with it.

No, I wasn't suggesting racism. I agree with your assessment of the situation.

I do think the make-up of the home run derby was odd, to say the least, though most of those guy do have a lot of homers this year, and several of the people you'd expect to be included (Ortiz and Guerrero, for instance) weren't available.

Tamar