Thoughts on this All-Star week, and those that came before it...

The American League defeats the National League, 5-3, in the 2024 MLB All-Star Game. Plus, thoughts on how All-Star week has changed over the years.

Rich MacLeod

Jul 17, 2024

What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️

The American League defeated the National League by a score of 5-3 in the 2024 MLB All-Star Game on Tuesday night (box)
1B Pete Alonso, the Mets’ lone All-Star representative, went 0-for-1 with a strikeout coming off the bench in the game
The SNY booth was ranked as the No. 1 booth in baseball in 2024 by Awful Announcing (Awful Announcing)
New York made 10 more picks on the final day of the draft on Tuesday, where they selected “Big Mets fan” Nick Roselli in the 11th round (MLB.com)

On Day 3 of the 2024 MLB Draft, the Mets made a total of 10 selections in rounds 11-20.

Here are the picks the Mets made on Day 3:

Round 11, Pick No. 323: 2B, Nick Roselli, Binghamton University
Round 12, Pick No. 353: RHP Ethan Lanthier, Kansas
Round 13, Pick No. 383: RHP R.J. Gordon, Oregon
Round 14, Pick No. 413: RHP Tanner Witt, Texas
Round 15, Pick No. 443: RHP Owen Woodward, U Houston
Round 16, Pick No. 473: RHP Josh Blum, USC
Round 17, Pick No. 503: OF Jacoby Long, Miami (FL)
Round 18, Pick No. 533: RHP Jace Hampson, Lynnwood HS
Round 19, Pick No. 563: RHP Frank Elissalt, Nova Southeastern University
Round 20, Pick No. 593: SS Adam Haight, Cedar Park Christian HS

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Down on the Farm 🌾

All Mets minor league affiliates are off for the next two days during the MLB All-Star break.

Today’s Game 🗓

The Mets are off for the next two days during the MLB All-Star break.

How All-Star week has changed, and how I’ve changed along with it… ✍️

The 2024 MLB All-Star Game took place last night, and with it came the close of the latest edition of this year’s All-Star week festivities.

As the days passed and the events rolled on, from the Futures Game to the Home Run Derby and through the main event itself, I caught myself watching less than any year before. It continued the trend I’ve noticed in myself over these last several years, with my interest waning slowly in the hooblah of baseball’s biggest week of celebration.

Each year we get to this time of the summer, I wonder to myself why I’ve seemed to lose a little bit more joy every year with the festivities. Sure, a lot has changed as the calendars have changed over with the formatting of these events (more times than one), the stakes of the game and even the jerseys that the teams wear, but I don’t even think that’s it.

I think it’s just me. And with that, I think it’s something that a lot of people may be able to relate to.

As some of you may know after following me over all these years, I did not adopt my baseball fandom at an early age. Despite playing little league for several years myself, it wasn’t until I was 15 that I truly became a Mets fan. But my baseball fandom did form in the years before that, and it was all because of the All-Star break.

Specifically for me, it was the Home Run Derby.

Every single summer for one night, my dad would gather me and my siblings and the five of us would watch these grown men do nothing but hit as many baseballs as they could as far as they could for hours on end. For us, it was magic.

I can still remember so many details of those moments to this day. Me and my three younger siblings, none of whom ever watched sports regularly, all cuddled up on the couch together with my dad at the end of it. The air conditioner would hum with its cool breeze behind us, and a sheet covered the door frame of our living room to keep that cold air in with us. I always loved that for whatever reason… it made our living room feel like our own private summer fort. We’d eat pizza together and listen to Chris Berman yell “back, back, back!” for as long as we could stay awake, as the sun set outside our living room window as the night rolled on.

It may sound sacrilegious now coming from a Mets fan, but one of the first baseball players I found myself rooting for was actually Jason Giambi. I don’t think I realized at the time he was a rival Yankee, so at the time all I saw was this big burly dude with a glorious mustache crushing dingers every July with my dad. It was hard not to love it.

The Home Run Derby, and All-Star week as a whole, will forever have an intrinsic connection to my childhood. It’s what made me fall in love with baseball before I even realized it, and it will always remind me of the youthful summers I can never get back.

And at the end of the day, I think that’s why these weeks don’t quite hit the same to me anymore. It’s not the rule changes or the uniforms or the players, but it’s me. Somewhere along the line I grew up, and with that a little bit of that magic slowly wore off. Those nights as a kid with my dad and my siblings all living under one roof are long gone, our summer fort along with it, and life is inherently far less simple than it once felt. It is both the beauty and the pain of this life—the inability to go back.

It doesn’t mean these events are any worse or that people shouldn’t be able to enjoy them, it just makes them a little different. At least for me.

Around the League 🚩

Red Sox OF Jarren Duran clubbed the go-ahead two-run home run and was named the MVP of the 2024 MLB All-Star Game
Dodgers DH Shohei Ohtani became the first player in MLB history to earn a win as a pitcher (2021) and hit a home run (last night) in their All-Star Game career
Pirates rookie RHP Paul Skenes made the start for the National League, pitching a scoreless first inning with no hits and one walk allowed