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2025 MLB All Star Game

hank
edited July 15 in Off-Topic
8:00 PM tonight from Atlanta. I don’t typically watch home teams (because I wager a bit), but caught a Tigers game recently and that kid Skubal’s the real deal. Looks like he’s starting for the AL. Name reminds me of the racing horse “Old Stewball” featured in a Peter, Paul & Mary song in the early 60s. I got 57-cents riding on “over 7” total runs tonight. Pays $1.14 should I guess right. If the run total is exactly 7 the wager is refunded. How it works. The NL is favored to win.

The Dodgers possess a great amount of talent - but injury prone. Shohei Ohtani is just amazing. A highly talented starting pitcher who also plays every day and bats for power and average. Unfortunately, he’s recovering from arm injury and has been rehabbing by pitching only 2 innings per start. They hope to have him up to 5 innings in time for the fall playoffs. 5-6 innings is pretty standard for starters nowadays. Days are gone when a starting pitcher was expected to finish the game.

Comments

  • larryB
    Thank god for baseball. Now more than ever. Go Tigers!
  • larryB
    Hank. Al Kaline, Old paw paw,,, Norm Cash. You remember these guys right?
  • hank
    edited July 15
    larryB said:

    Hank. Al Kaline, Old paw paw,,, Norm Cash. You remember these guys right?

    Yeah Larry. I think of Kaline all the time. What a class act on and off the field. I believe Detroit was the only MLB team he ever played for. Yeah - Cash at first base. Willy Horton too. And “tough-luck” Jim Bunning who they never seemed to score many runs for.
  • larryB
    I remember two serious injuries Kaline suffered. It killed me. He was a real smooth fielder. Frank Bolling,,, Dick maculiffe. Frank Lary. Very happy times at tiger stadium. I learned about our families growing affluence over the years by where we sat. Upper deck general admission,,, lower deck left field and later box seats behind the Tigers dugout. One of my last days in Michigan I saw Nolan Ryan no hit the tigers.
  • hank
    edited July 15
    Kaline broke his hand once slamming a bat into the bat rack in anger I recall. Not sure what precipitated that. But maybe a strike out / bad call by an ump.

    I had relatives in Hazel Park, Dearborn and other metro regions in the late 50s and early 60s. I’d get on a Greyhound bus up north and ride down there to visit for a week or two in the summer as a 10-14 year old kid. We attended several Tigers games. One older cousin who was in her late teens or early 20s and a pretty good looking chick knew some of the Tigers players and hung out a bit with some of them after games. Yeah - Old Tiger Stadium was very special.
  • larryB
    I remember (I think) Kaline got hurt making a diving catch in right and another time getting hit by a thrown ball at first. So you date back to Briggs Stadium. I take it you are from what we called up north. I went to summer camp in west branch and took canoe trips on the Au Sable river. And we took trips to Petosky and Charlavios. Bad spelling.
  • hank
    edited July 15
    Thanks for the correction. It was Briggs Stadium. Yes, family moved to northern michigan (TC) from the Detroit area in 50s.
  • catch22catch22
    edited July 15
    Hi @larryB Lucky for we Michigander's that 'up north' has different meanings depending on the southern starting point, eh?. I recall the sign along I-75 near Gaylord indicating the 45th parallel knowing we were already half way to the North Pole.
  • larryB
    edited July 15
    Yeah Catch. You are right,,,, starting in Detroit,,,,, Flint could be up north. Up north was a common phrase in my youth. But it had no specific meaning. But Hank would agree that Traverse City was up north.
  • larryB
    At Hank. Was the Red Fox Inn a thing near TC or Boyne? I seem to remember it from when I was a kid but I could be wrong. For years I talked about a New Riders of the Purple Sage concert in Colorado Springs I attended that apparently never happened.
  • hank
    And to me the UP isn’t “up north.” It’s more like “Far out.” I’d not be surprised were it someday were to become a separate state.
  • Derf
    Does baseball need the challenge call on ball & strike pitches? It was in place & used during the game.

    Congrats to hank on his winning bet!
    Home run swing off for the win. Are you shitting me?!

    Time for bed.
  • hank
    edited July 16
    ”Home run swing off for the win. Are you shitting me?!”

    My thoughts too. What a sham. The game should have been called a tie. I do understand that in a fun contest like this the benches get depleted so all can participate. And these players need to get their rest and then rejoin their teams. No need to play extra innings.

    Ya know what? The HR tie-breaker is an obvious concession to the gaming industry. Had the game ended in a tie, all who’d wagered on either side would have been entitled to a full refund. The gaming industry would not have received its customary cut!
  • CrashCrash
    Stinky poopy. That sounds stoopid. Like a shoot-out in ice hockey? That's just crap. (In hockey, too.)
  • hank
    edited July 16
    Money talks.

    If you’re not aware, legalized gaming has become a very large and profitable industry. (Inadverdantly, it has increased viewership and helped sports networks.) I posted a Barron’s article on it several months ago. For me, wagering 50-cents to a dollar on a contest I intend to watch makes the experience a little more entertaining. Unfortunately, it can be highly addictive and destructive of lives. I’d never vote to legalize it today based on how it has progressed.

    Back to that deplorable ending to what had been a pleasurable viewing experience. The MLB All-Star game isn’t serious competition. It’s a showcase of talent across the leagues and rests on that merit. A tie outcome would have been welcomed by the participants. However, the gaming industry (ie DraftKings) needs to turn a profit. Having to refund 100% of the millions of dollars wagered on the game back to individuals in the event of a tie would have been costly. No “cut” for the company. So potentially costly ISTM that an unseemly alternative to the HR “contest” might well have been to bribe a player, coach or umpire to engage in an impropriety that would have ended the tie through another scored run. Given the alternative … I’ll take the HR contest.

    Money talks …
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