Well, it's the All-Star break for the MLB season, so now's a good time to make a post about a couple of things that could be categorized as "Bud Blunders". I'm talking about Bud Selig of course, and I will start with the All-Star game itself.

A couple of years ago, Bud Selig and the league were trying to come up with a way to make the All-Star game more appealing to fans and viewers. (This was the year after Selig made the unexplicable decision to call the All-Star game in the 11th inning a tie.) Fans were not happy, so I guess they felt they had to do something drastic.

Their idea - as FOX makes very clear with its tagline "This time it counts" - was to make the league that wins the game have homefield advantage in the World Series. At the time, SI.com called for readers' responses to this idea. They printed mine (online) on July 14, 2003:

"It's seemingly a great idea for making the All-Star Game more interesting, but an absolutely horrendous way of deciding home-field advantage in the World Series. I don't like the old system of alternating, but at least you know that if you've got the best record in the majors and make the World Series for two straight years, you'd be guaranteed home-field advantage once. But with the current system, you could get home-field advantage neither time, simply because the players on the other teams in your league couldn't get it done in the All-Star Game. This has absolutely no merit, and I myself will be boycotting the All-Star Game until they give home-field advantage to the team (not league) that truly deserves it."

I have not changed my feelings on this since then, so I again will not be watching the All-Star game. I may watch the Home Run derby tonight, although the idea of having players represent their country is a little bit suspect. It leaves out some deserving players, as Albert Pujols won't be participating since David Ortiz is representing the Dominican Republic. How does Selig continually make such boneheaded decisions?

They way he has been handling the All-Star game is just one instance in a long line of blunders. Tune in later when I will give a full list.