Well, I’ve become pretty disenchanted with the Home Run derby the last few years. Other than Josh Hamilton’s show a couple of years ago, and Nelson Cruz winning it last year, I’ve grown tired of listening to the babble of Joe Morgan & Chris Berman. Berman’s “back back back back” itself was getting old, but in the last few years, the “newscast” has been so interrupted with things they have to do commercial wise and all that… Yeesh. They spend so much time talking to “guests” on the panel, that for some of the guys in the derby, they spent no time talking about, and talking about the doofus there.
Will Ferrell was the final straw for me. All he was there for was to push some movie he’s in. That’s enough. It’s bad enough they have people there at all, but to then turn it into a Jay Leno type interview was unforgivable. First off, the derby lineup was guys I pretty much didn’t care about, I was completely bored. I was mildly interested when Corey Hart did well in the first round, but he tanked out with zero in the second round, so I didn’t care who won.
They need to boot Berman and his cronies, and put someone else in there. While I don’t have a particular replacement in mind, why not turn it into some rotating thing of the various MLB teams’ broadcasters, so we can see/hear some of them? Get the broadcasters to the All Star game, too. I’m sure they’d love to do that. Ditch the Will Ferrell suck ups for personal promotion, too. This thing is already so stupid commercialized, it’s just annoying as hell now. Don’t get me wrong, I like Will Ferrell a lot. He’s pretty darned funny. He did NOT belong on the panel at the HR Derby.
For the first time I actually stuck around and watched the Celebrity Softball game afterwards. I never do that. You know what? That was miles more entertaining than the Home Run Derby. I think next year I might just skip the derby completely and tune in for the last 15 minutes and see who won, and watch the softball game.
Jenny Finch fast pitching to Ricky Henderson was a hysterical moment. Ricky’s then “dancing” around the basepaths after his home runs (yeah, two of ’em) was pretty darned funny. The softball game was fun, the Home Run Derby was not.
Get a clue, MLB. This isn’t the way to have a HR derby.
Morgan is boring on his best day, and Berman is rapidly becoming Dick Vitale, i.e. a caricature of himself. Yawn.
I totally agree on the softball game. At lunch today we spent a couple of minutes at most on the HRD, and the rest of the time on the softball game. It was, by a large margin, more entertaining than the HRD. I’ll watch that again next year. Don’t care if I ever see another HRD in the present format.
Yes, it is extremely boring!