All Star ranting

This started out as a comment on Ken Levine's post this morning, but it just kept going....

I thought it was nice of the Cubs to open up their roster this year for some players on other teams to come to New York and play, too. Gosh, I hope it doesn't backfire on them.... They really think they are playing for home field advantage.

And seriously, if the NL roster isn't just a matter of Cubs-plus, how could anyone explain the selection of Carlos "Meltdown" Marmol?

Meanwhile, my son the conspiracy theorist figures that the reason White Sox third baseman (and soon to be free agent) Joe Crede and his 17 errors got selected this year (for the first time!) as a reserve was to permit Terry Francona and the Boston staff to pitch him and his agent, Scott Boras, about taking up similar responsibilities next year in Fenway. Without tampering, see?

And about that Home Run Derby: It was amazing to see Josh Hamilton hit ball after ball after ball into the seats.

For awhile.

Then it kind of got... boring. After all, it's still just batting practice.

Still, Middle Son was impressed. "Forget about steroids," he said. "From here on out, I'm going after meth."

I'm almost certain he was kidding.

Actually, although I can hear my late mother's voice saying, "It's all his own fault" -- and it was -- Josh Hamilton's fall from the number one draft pick in the entire country to three years out of baseball because of alcohol and drug abuse (including, I've been told, crystal meth, crack cocaine, and LSD) and then back to the majors is truly inspirational. His story might already be on film if he didn't play for the Texas Rangers... but free agency will take care of that soon enough.