E-mail time!

Got an e-mail in the ol'inbox this morning. Got a question? E-mail astroscounty@hotmail.com.

From Tom in Shreveport, Louisiana:
Did you watch the Home Run Derby?

So I'll respond for everybody, so we all can learn:
No. I watched about five minutes of it, and then changed the channel, and allow me to tell you why. The Home Run Derby is baseball's most hypocritical event. There's about 10% of me that wants to think everybody who participated is clean, but over an All-Star Break, hitting baseballs a long way is the only "skill" being tested. This is bullcrap. There are so many ways baseball could make the All-Star Break more interesting, other than forcing us to listen to Chris Berman for four hours.

I know I'm not the first one to propose changes to the All-Star Break, but who wouldn't want to see a race between Carl Crawford and Emilio Bonifacio? Who wouldn't want to see Dustin Pedroia, David Wright, Derek Jeter, and Hanley Ramirez throw baseballs at targets from 100 feet to see who has the most accurate arm? Who wouldn't want to see Hunter Pence, Torii Hunter (hurt, I know), Carlos Beltran, and Ichiro throw a baseball from the outfield into a garbage can a la Tom Emanski's drill videos?

If MLB wants to get away from the idea that home runs are What It's All About, then they need to add some other skill than hitting home runs.