There are a lot of words you can use to describe Sunday night’s NBA All-Star game in Dallas, but one you can’t use is “small.” Because it was big. Or gargantuan. Or whatever word you want that means “really, really ridiculously large.”
How Can The MLB Combat NBA’s ‘Larger Than Life’ All-Star Game? Go Small
↵Last night’s spectacle -- which pleased an in-house audience of more than 108,000 (a record for a basketball game) at the new Cowboys Stadium -- has to make you wonder about other sports and their All-Star games. What if the MLB’s All-Star game was played in a larger-than-life venue? Or, how about a smaller-than-life stadium?:
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↵But for the sake of imagination, let's say that MLB wanted to take a one-year respite from the regular rotation and do something different to generate excitement and grab headlines. Wouldn't Doubleday Field in Cooperstown be the place to do it? Or maybe the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa?
↵I'd be up for the idea. The crowd would be small, the camera angles would be tight and baseball would finally come close to that agrarian past it's always trying to sell to us. Who wouldn't want to see Derek Jeter(notes) or Tim Lincecum(notes) bringing the game back to its roots and performing in a park built on a Pony League scale?
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↵This is an idea that I think baseball purists can get behind, but is it feasible? As the author notes, “millions of dollars in lost ticket revenue guarantee that it would never happen.” That’s the first snag -- a big snag, at that. There’s also the fact that, yes, the crowd will be closer, but this isn’t little leaguers at the dish. Imagine an Albert Pujols foul ball sliced into the crowd on the first base side. That wouldn’t be pretty.
↵But, as baseball purists, we could all hope for this to happen. A hope that will never be fulfilled -- like the National League adopting the designated hitter.
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