Five Chicago All Stars
By Benjy Lipsman in News on Jul 5, 2005 4:31PM
Major League Baseball announced its All Star rosters over the holiday weekend, and at least five Chicago players will be in Detroit for the game on July 12th. Representing the White Sox will be Paul Konerko, Jon Garland and Mark Buehrle. Konerko was a bit of a surprise, considering his .247 batting average. But it's kind of a make-up call for last year's snub when he was hitting close to .300 at the time. Garland and Buehrle clearly deserve their selections. In fact, one or the other is likely to be the starting AL pitcher for the game. Having already earned $15,000 bonuses for making the team, each have an additional $10,000 bonus riding on starting the game.
Joining the three Sox players will be two Cubs -- Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez. Lee overtook Albert Pujols in the final days of the fan voting and will start at First Base for the NL squad. In spite of having one of the most feared starting rotations heading into the season, no Cubs pitcher made the All Star team.
While five are guaranteed their spots in Detroit, Chicago has the opportunity to send one more. Fan voting will determine the Final Man on each league's roster, and the White Sox's Scott Podsednik is one of the five candidates for the spot. So head over to MLB.com and cast your votes -- we're Chicagoans so vote as often as you want!
Even as fans select two more players to the All Star teams, a number of players who should have been selected will instead make other plans for the break. The Trib's Phil Rogers is right to suggest that Kenny Rogers should bow out to make room for Matt Clement. His recent outburst at a cameraman that'll cost him 20 games and $50k should also preclude his playing in the All Star game. And Clement's 9-2 clearly warrants his inclusion.
Of course, why was Clement left off in the first place? Because baseball's All Star game has a rule that every team have at least one representative in the game. This rule clearly needs to be changed, because it's unfair to the fans and players alike. Why should players like Matt Clement miss out because somebody (Danys Baez) from Tampa Bay has to play? Why Brian Fuentes instead of Matt Morris? This isn't Little League -- if you're not good enough, you don't go.