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The sight of this year’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game…

A FEW THOUGHTS OF BASEBALL’S ALL-STAR GAME BEING HELD AT DODGER STADIUM FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1980, PLUS A FEW MEMORIES OF THAT LAST JULY CLASSIC

The last time that Major League Baseball held it’s All-Star Game in Chavez Ravine, I was 13 years old.

I had just finished 7th grade and my first year on the Athletics in the Santa Monica Pony Baseball League;

Where I didn’t do so great as I didn’t play anywhere but right field, but was still a fun time particularly due to the fact that we got to keep our game jerseys,

Which was more or less my wardrobe that summer.

My immediate family had just expanded due to a stepfather joining such,

My two front teeth would be knocked out by a baseball that was thrown and went off my glove into my mouth the next week,

And I would join a youth softball league at my local park, where I played third base and did much better that I did on the A’s that spring, a week of so after that.

So it was a pretty busy summer for me that year.

As for that All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium…

No, I didn’t get to go see that mid-summer classic in person, though of course it would have been a blast, as obsessed as I was with baseball at that time;

I saw it on TV like pretty much everyone else, Ken Griffey Sr’s (Ken Griffey Jr’s dad) two-run home run making the difference in the National League’s 4-2 win over the American League.

I was impressed with the new “Diamond Vision” video board above the left field pavilion that debuted that game; I thought having what was essentially a TV as a message board was quite cool, and was impressed that the Dodgers were the first team to have one.

J.R. Richard of the (pre-cheating) Houston Astros was the starting pitcher for the National League that day, and he was one of my favorites because he stood 6′ 8″ and threw absolute smoke. His essentially career-ending stroke, the troubles he had following that in the form of bad business deals and homelessness, and his death from COVID-19 earlier this year was heartbreaking.

And as for the return of the Mid-Summer Classic to Dodger Stadium…

Once again, due to the fact that you more or less have to know someone rich or have several dozen thousand dollars to spend to get in I unfortunately won’t get to go to the game.

Nor will I be able to attend two other events that I honestly enjoy more,

  • The Futures Game, which features the top minor league players, and…
  • The All-Star Celebrity Softball Game, with combines former big leaguers with other famous people from entertainment and other sports; if there were a contest drawing in which the winner got to play in that game, I would waste no time in submitting my name as it would be an absolute honor and blast to play an actual game at Dodger Stadium

I had planned to attend the All-Star Oceanfest at Santa Monica Pier, but it didn’t work out and I was unable to go.

But I am looking forward to watching the Futures Game, the Celebrity Softball Game, and the All-Star Game itself, on TV.

In case you were wondering,

I’m not that big a fan of the Home Run Derby, because players who participate in that tend to have sub-par second halves;

If I were in “The Show” and was having a good year with a bunch of home runs, and if I were invited to participate in the Home Run Derby,

I would most likely turn it down for concern that it would mess up my swing and result in a disappointing final two and a half months of the season.

As such,

Despite it being a glamorous exhibition game,

I think it’s cool that this 92nd MLB All-Star Game will be held in the stadium that I have been to over sixty times, and which I have sat in every section except the one between the loge and reserved seats at least once.

I think it’s cooler that the Dodger Stadium workers/concessionaires, who had announced that they may strike, have agreed to not go on strike during All-Star Weekend while a new union contract is being worked out.

And in my view,

It would be the coolest thing for the Dodgers to win their eighth World Series championship in a little over three months.

Because at the end of the day, that is so much more important.

What Dodger Stadium will look like this coming Tuesday…