(Welcome to the third day of our All-Star week celebration. Check out yesterday’s post here.)
Ugh.
The day after the All-Star Game.
The Void.
It’s the baseball equivalent of December 26, when the last few dollops of our Cracker Jack figgy pudding lie shriveled and drying on our stirrup-sock stockings, where we dropped it standing up too fast when Garry Maddox raced to the wall to snag a home run away from Dwayne Murphy in last night’s Midsummer Classic.
Except …
Well, except this is not 1984.
And, even worse, Maddox and Murphy never squared off in an All-Star Game.
In fact, neither guy ever squared off against anyone in an All-Star Game.
But they’re here to help us fill that Void, to make us wonder how in the heck these two dudes with 14 Gold Gloves and 283 home runs between them have the same number of All-Star appearances as I do.
And, if you’re not quite ready to ponder the vastness of that mystery, maybe you could handle a romp through the cardboard of some other baseball stars who never quite earned the “All-” qualifier, against all reason.
It’s a fun read (if I do say so myself), especially if you enjoy very hyper-specific titles and criteria …
The season resumes tomorrow, thank goodness, but All-Star week continues here in this space. You’ll thank me later (OK, probably not).
Now, gotta go polish my All-Star trophies.
—Adam