One Star.

       Well, it's the All-Star break again and Tuesday means the big game is ready to be played.  One of the many good things about this baseball season is getting rid of Bud Selig, who a lot of people hate for the wrong reasons.  The A-number-one reason to hate that dude was the 2002 All Star Game, when he just threw up his hands and let the game end in a tie.  Any one of 20 other ideas could have come to him (off the top of my head - let position players pitch, let a pitcher reenter the game, have the coaches toss an impromptu home run derby - winner take all) but instead he did nothing. What a jackass.  Instead, remember, This Time It Counts™! 

That little rant aside, this year only one Mets player made the game and it is a different sort of pick, Daniel Murphy:

Murphy is a scrappy player who makes the most of his limited talents.  He will never be a "star" per se, but he plays his butt off every day.  And he can definitely hit.  Now he gets to have the little All Star banner over his name on his Baseball Reference page forever.

Sadly, Daniel Murphy is destined to join such glorious Mets solo All Stars as John Stearns, Lee Mazzilli, Pat Zachry and Joel Youngblood in the annals of history.  And how the hell did Armando Benitez ever make an All Star Team?  Yikes.

This year the game is being played in Target Field in Minnesota and last year it was played in Citifield.

How much did that mean to me?  I didn't write a single word about it last year.  In fact, the last time I mentioned the All Star Game prominently was two years ago and it was a less than glowing recommendation.  I did make this page of cards from last years Topps Update because it had the ASG logo on it, which was very Mets-centric.

I didn't go to any of the Mets Fan Fest events last year and I regret that because I did go to the one from the Yankee Stadium game in 2008 and it was a lot of fun.  I even held the fastest thrown ball at the booth with the radar gun for like 20 minutes.  I got there early and 69 MPH was enough to give me 5 more minutes of fame than I deserve. 

I also picked up these four Fan Fest exclusive Mets Manu-Patch cards.  Three of the four obviously make me very happy, though my hatred for Jose Reyes has diminished since he went to Toronto because now he is on a team whose job it is is to keep the Yankees out of the playoffs.