back to the All-Star Game

Eventually I returned home and decided to give this game a few innings’ worth. I’m no longer sure that Fox is responsible for the film-like air of the video image; it may just be a bad TV in this room, whose quality seems questionable.

But otherwise, I find the event pretty depressing, and can’t remember if it was already this bad when I left the U.S. I’d call myself patriotic, but I loathe schmaltzy group patriotism staged according to scripted anthems and flitting images of the tombs of the fallen. I’m all in favor of fighting cancer to ease so much suffering, but see no point in the ceremonial communal wallowing in the need for a cancer cure in the midst of a baseball game. I’m sad that Harmon Killebrew died (a big baseball star from the 1960’s), but don’t wish to listen to tasteless mournful piano music as his image is displayed on screen. I’m not being a snob here– these things really do startle and offend my nervous system.

This ought to be an exciting baseball game featuring the best players in the game today, but it has somehow been transformed into a kind of national group sex enabled by the imaginary support of collective commitment to charity and military actions. That may sound too harsh, but the baseball really seems obscured by the cardboard Americana with which it’s been framed.