In honor of the All-Star Game today, a re-post of an awesome idea I came up with for last summer’s summer classic while working on my old website.

I’m going to spend the entire day lounging around at Pi. President Obama will be throwing out the first pitch of the game, and rumor has it, Pi is his favorite pizza place in St. Louis (the country?).  Celebrity sighting?  Let’s hope for the best.

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[Originally posted July 2008, updated with some grammar and shoe shine]

Let’s have some fun with the All-Star Game.

No matter how many times Bud Selig wants to give the AL home-field advantage in the World Series, the All-Star Game (like the rest of the weekend) should be first and foremost about having fun and giving back to the fans. One of my most striking All-Star Game memories was a Larry Walker at-bat in the late ’90s, against an ornery Randy Johnson. Johnson accidentally lets a fastball rip nearly a foot over Walker’s head (and I stress accidentally, because RJ probably wanted to place the ball a lot closer). Walker then calls timeout, and for the first time in his career, walks to the other side of the plate and bats righty. His helmet doesn’t even have the ear protection on that side, so he flips it and wears it backwards. It was as bizarre as it was awesome.

The All-Star Game is a rare opportunity for all of the best talent in baseball to be together on the field at the same time (besides, of course, any time the Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox play each other). The team managers obviously realize this, and attempt to capitalize by substituting players every three innings or so. But they’re doing it all wrong. Here’s how they could be doing it better:

First, the All-Star Game starters should NOT start the game, they should end it. I think we’re stuck with the asinine player substitution system, which leads to Chase Utley on the bench, cheering on Dan Uggla in extra innings.  Somehow, we managed to make it through 70-plus ASGs that had a few players dress but sit on the bench. How did we get by as a society then?  Josh Hamilton barely got the chance this year to dazzle us with another one of his epic bomb home runs we saw in the derby. So at the very least, let’s get into the habit of bringing the starters in for the 7th inning stretch, not the last backups. We know that that’s when the real game starts, so we should get to see the real rosters play it. I think Bill Simmons wrote about this at some point.

But assuming that this concept is too difficult for our lovely Commissioner to handle (or, perhaps, he’s too busy drawing himself gigantic paychecks), let’s have some more fun with the substitutions. I think one clever manager should substitute his entire roster at once. While they’re in the field (the pitcher, too). And definitely in the middle of an at-bat, preferrably in a clutch situation. Imagine the look of fear (or is that confusion?) on Evan Longoria’s face when, two strikes into an at-bat with the bases loaded, the entire National League defense trots off the field and is substituted. Now imagine the look of joy on every fan watching the antics on TV. It’s a one- or two-time use stunt, topps, but the level of hilarity in a baseball game is unprecedented. And because of the smaller roster sizes during the regular season, there’s literally no other opportunity during the season to perform a Nonuple Switch (TM). Amazingly, “nonuple” is actually a word.

Another fun opportunity rarely afforded to us fans with skewed senses of humor is the chance to see players play out of position, with little repercussion. I remember back in 2002; the American League roster had a whopping five shortstops: the three-headed monster of A-Rod, Jeter, and Nomar topping the list, with Vizquel and Tejada rounding out the list. How many people watching the game wouldn’t have gladly traded their own glove to see some kind of a Nomar-Jeter-A-Rod double play? I mean, granted, us Yankee fans almost get to see that now. But it’s not the same.  What about an All-Short Stop infield? I bet you could convince Vizquel to don a catcher’s mask for half an inning.

But you can go even further. I wonder, what would David Ortiz look like at Second Base for an inning? (I’d rather see Ken Harvey play there…but I’d be utterly shocked if any of you would recognize a Ken Harvey / Second Base reference.) I bet you Papi wouldn’t mind, if that wrist of his ever got healthy. Even better, let’s get some of those position players onto the pitchers mound. I know I’m not the only one who fondly remembers the day Mark Grace took the mound for the Arizona Diamondbacks and executed a perfect Mike Fetters windup. Or watching Wade Boggs throw a pretty good knuckleball. YouTube, sadly, seems a bit more forgetful [note – found the Boggs video!].

But why not make this a highlight on center stage? What do you think David Wright’s windup would look like? We actually, sadly, came oh-so-terribly close to a J.D. Drew vs. David Wright pitching matchup in this year’s game, before Brad Lidge ruined it for everyone. Can you imagine J.D. Drew taking the mound in the 16th inning in a deadlocked game? And then the AL would have to play catchup the next inning, but they’d get to feast on Wright’s 70- or 80- something mph fastball? That’s a story you can tell your grandkids about.

Maybe those ‘85 Bears were on to something. It’s time for the All-Star Game Shuffle.