The Home Run Derby

First of all, congrats to Prince Fielder. You deserve it.
If I were you, I would go over to Hannegan's at Leclede's Landing and have some Mississippi Mud Pie. Great restaurant if you're ever in St. Louis.

That said, I enjoyed the Home Run Derby, I wanted Albert Pujols to win it, but I think he put too much pressure on himself, and yesterday against the Cubs, he didn't look like he was locked in, to me.

Alas, it was a good derby. Nothing like last year, but solid nonetheless.

But why does the Home Run Derby have to take three hours to do? Why does Major League Baseball have the thing designed so that the hitters look like they are about to pass out from fatigue? Why is it designed so that you may have to take more cuts two hours after your first round? Surely, there has to be a better way. Here are some changes that I would like to see in the Home Run Derby.

1. Make ESPN stop having Chris Berman and Joe Morgan announce the Home Run Derby. I don't think I really have to expound on this too much. It speaks for itself. Unfortunately, they speak, period. Although, I will say Berman did seem to limit his croaks of back, back, back, back...gone and his pointless annointing of nicknames to players- Winnie the Poohjols? Seriously? , although he couldn't help himseld with Nelson Cruz. "Should it be....Cruz around the world, Cruz around the park?- Or should it be none of the above Chris. JUST STOP! And maybe I've just finally learned to tune Joe Morgan out or Steve Phillips finally got sick of it and finally purchased a taser, but unless I missed it, I didn't hear a reference to Tony Perez, Pete Rose, or the fact that Joe played for the Cincinnati Reds. Surprisingly, the result was one of Morgan's better performances to date. Hopefully he'll take a hint, or Phillips will keep the taser charged.
2. Have three guys go for each league instead of four. This will trim some time off right there. And maybe save people like Brandon Inge some embarassment- although he could very well have had flashbacks of Adam Wainwright's slider the entire time. Yes, St. Louis has nice fans, but I'm willing to bet that many of them weren't just giving Inge an ovation for giving it the "old college try". The guy in the video striking out to end the World Series in 2006 for the Cardinals win- that's Brandon Inge.

3. The "lucky" players that make it to the finals all look like they've been drug around the stadium before their last at bat. Why not make it 10 outs in the first round, 5 outs in the second, and 5 outs in the final round?

4. Do you remember who won the Home Run Derby last year? If you said Josh Hamilton, you would be wrong. It was Justin Morneau, for you inquiring minds. But most people would have said that Hamilton won it because he hit 28 in one round, BUT since his home runs didn't carry over, he ultimately lost. Does this make sense to anyone? I mean, when it gets to the point where guys are tanking at bats, or at least considering it so that they can save energy because the home runs don't carry over, something needs to be changed. And how do you hit more home runs than anyone in the Derby, and still lose? I know the home runs carried over from the first round to the second, but why not to the finals to? If you have a monster round like Hamilton, reward the guy. He earned it. Besides, most people remember what he did than the guy who won the thing in the first place.

5. Allow players that don't make it to the All-Star game to participate in the Home Run Derby. The NBA does this with the slam dunk contest. I would have not had a problem at all with a Mark Reynolds- who I once saw hit a ball off of the tom-tom in dead center field at Turner Field, or Adam Dunn for that matter participate.

All of these are reasonable changes that I think would make the Home Run Derby better, and when I say reasonable, I'm not going to champion aluminum bats or having Byung-Hyung Kim serve up the pitches or anything else ridiculous. The fact of the matter is the Home Run Derby is a great event that goes on way too long and has a flawed system for determining the winner. I'd like to see what it could be with some of these changes, which I believe would make it way bigger than it already is.