Often we look back on the steroid era as a dark period of baseball history. But there’s no denying that the one thing that made the steroid era worthwhile was the yearly Home Run Derby when 8 mammoth sluggers flexed their roid prescriptions and hit bomb after bomb after bomb. Anyone remember Sammy Sosa’s display at Turner Field when he was hitting balls to places where baseballs shouldn’t travel? How about in ‘99 when Mark McGwire and Sosa showed Ted Williams how to find the vein and pump the andro hit tape measure shots without tiring? Now, in a cleaner and more politically correct period in baseball history, we get flabby fat asses like Lance Berkman hitting a few into the upper deck and then getting exhausted by the middle of the second round.
My finger points to the format. Do we need three rounds to determine the winner? It took us three hours to find out that the guy who had the least number of home runs in the regular season amongst the competitors would be crowned the winner. If you ask me, the only worthwhile part of that three hours was the time when Josh Hamilton was in the box. The Great Hambino put on a performance that the Home Run Derby had never seen before, hitting moon shot after moon shot in the first round. 28 home runs is ridiculous. No…it’s sick. Yet after Hamilton’s first round display, he went on to hit only 7 home runs in the following two rounds. How does the guy who hits 35 home runs in the Derby lose to the guy who hits 22?
Before I jump off my soap box, I’d like to make one more suggestion. Lets not have guys in the derby who aren’t hitting bombs during the regular season. Lets learn from the NBA Dunk Contest and get the 8 guys who absolutely crush, regardless of whether or not they got picked to play in the All Star Game. Ryan Howard leads the world in home runs right now but, because of his .234 average he wasn’t invited to the Mid-Summer classic. Adam Dunn falls right behind Howard in the home run count but, like Howard, has an atrocious batting average and was left off the All Star team. Now, who the hell wouldn’t want to see Dunn and Howard slug it out in a meaningless competition to see how far each can hit a baseball. This isn’t a singles competition. I don’t want to see either guy try and hit the outfield gaps just like I don’t want to see Dunk Contest competitors try and hit a 15 foot jump shot. Until it’s fixed, the Derby is going to continue to deteriorate while ESPN attempts to fill three hours of airtime with interviews and anticlimactic endings.
