Every time I'm ready to give up on the Home Run Derby something like this happens. For those who didn't catch the action Monday, I recommend reading accounts from those more eloquent than me (like
Jayson Stark or
Peter Gammons), but here is the reader's digest version:
- Josh Hamilton, derailed from a baseball career by drug and alcohol addiction, gets himself straightened out and re-instated in baseball. His second year back, he makes the All-Star game and is invited to hit in the home run derby
- Each player brings their own person to pitch to them. Josh decides to bring a volunteer coach Craig Council from his home town who pitched batting practice to him in his hometown. Josh had told him when he was a teenager that if he made it to the home run derby he'd have Council be his pitcher. Council is now 71. (and by the way, the one other time in his life Council was at Yankee stadium, it was for Don Larsen's perfect game in the World series)
- Josh then proceeds to hit 28 home runs in the first round alone, including 3 500ft+. He hits 35 home runs total, but loses out in the final round.
It is a great story and was fantastic to watch. But that last sentence highlights what is so annoying about the home run derby. Hamilton hit 13 more home runs than the winner, but lost because he tired out hitting so many in the first round and the total is wiped clean for the final round.
This three-round set up has got to stop. I imagine the score is reset going into the finals is meant to build the tension, but I've never seen tension build. The best part of the derby is the first round when everyone is fresh. By the time the final round comes, everyone knows the guys are tired and someone who can squeak out 5 home runs will win. Since 2000, only half the time is the person who hits the most home runs actually the winner.
Perhaps the format is also supposed to introduce some "strategy" into the competition. Please. This is a home run derby - people want to see it belted out and belted often and far. Fans don't want to see players ease up in the first round so they can hit more later. If Josh had stopped at 15 when he was safely in the next round, he would have gotten booed.
So, Baseball: split it up however you like, different rounds based on outs or number of home runs hit, eliminate players as you go along or don't. I don't care. Just make one rule very simple: He who hits the most home runs wins.
P.S. - Oh, and get rid of the State Farm people injecting themselves into the middle of the thing. I'm glad they're sponsoring it and helping the Boys and Girls Clubs out. Plaster the logo, hand out the trophy, whatever, but don't have a State Farm guy "hand out the first ball" to Reggie Jackson to "throw out the first pitch" (of a home run derby???) and don't have a dippy fan-participation promotion before the final round. OK, I'm done. Really.
