midsummer classic

one of the increasingly popular reasons why i love summer is because of baseball season.  yesterday i enjoyed the “midsummer classic” also known as the all star game where fans vote for their favorite players to represent in the american and national league teams.  the american league has been winning this game since 1999 and that’s fine by me since the yankees are in the AL.  this year the festivities took place in st. louis, home of the cardinals and the very coveted albert pujols who leads the mlb in homeruns, RBIs and slugging %.  they honored him like crazy and he did a good job of trying to do it all for the fans.  he participated in the home run derby, even when its said that players that compete often see their home run numbers go down in the 2nd half of the season.  this is a big risk for pujols since he has great numbers so far in the season.  when the all star game was in new york, alex rodriguez didn’t compete in the derby and that was a disappointment to fans.  when pujols was interviewed, he was humble and he just kept saying how “awesome” it was to be in the company of all the other all stars and being in st louis.  he also had played a double header on sunday before the all star festivities began and then participated in both the homerun derby on monday and all star game on tuesday.  this says a lot about pujols and his dedication to his fans and to the game itself.  even though he went 0 for 3 and made a fielding error in the 1st inning, he made several outstanding defensive plays that preventing the AL from scoring and keeping the game a close one.  way to go pujols!  or as he’s also known as, “winnie the pooh.”

i had read somewhere that st. louis is the best baseball city and has the best fans.  but yesterday during the ceremonial first pitch thrown by our president barak obama, he was boo-ed by the crowds of st. louis.  i was stunned and appalled that the fans would “go there” because to me, this game is the eptitome of all things american and i cannot believe that our president would be treated and shamed in this manner.  okay, shamed is really my word and my imagination of how i would feel if i were him but it honestly felt wrong on so many levels.  i was reminded that missouri is a swing state and not everyone voted for him so he’s not all that popular over there but really, is a baseball game really the forum to display those types of feelings?  granted that we, the american people have every right to tell the president what kind of job we think he’s doing, but honestly yesterday was about celebrating baseball and about honoring those 30 people that did good for our nation.  i think the crowd really ruined it for me when they boo-ed the president.

some pictures from the all star game courtesy of yahoo sports:

albert pujols and president obama after the first pitch

carl crawford’s catch that robbed brad hawpe of a go-ahead home run in the 7th inning

curtis granderson tripled in the 8th inning breaking the tie and putting the AL on top

mariano rivera sets a record with his 4th all star save.  i love this picture of the arch behind him!