Home Run Derby 2013: Yoenis Cespedes wins it all

Popularity doesn’t always have a strong correlation with value, a fact that has been proven endlessly throughout time. “Two and a Half Men” outdraws shows like “Parks and Recreation.” Nickelback sells more albums than your favorite critically-acclaimed rock band. But even knowing this, data showing the Home Run Derby was watched by more people than any NBA playoff game shown this year on ESPN is still enough to make you do a double-take.

So, maybe baseball isn’t losing its grasp as America’s pastime after all?

Diabolical.

Keep the sound down on this one, or someone is liable to ask you why you’re watching a video of a sick chicken.

Harper, who hit 16 homers in the first two rounds, led off the final round. The 20-year-old, who was receiving pitches from his father Ron Harper, went deep on the first three swings of the final round. Harper finished the round with eight homers, his third straight round with exactly eight home runs.

Cespedes, who hit 23 homers in the first two rounds, stepped up to the plate after Harper. The outfielder smashed a line-drive homer on his first swing of the final round, and blasted his second homer of the round 411 feet on his third swing. The right-hander continued his power display, hitting his ninth homer with five outs to go.

I think Piazza just got “The Grudge”‘d. Or something.

UPDATE: BONUS PHOTOBOMB!

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Let’s hope he sticks around baseball for a long, long time.

The American League captain probably wishes there weren’t cameras in the clubhouse.

Enjoy our ramblings! They might be better than Chris Berman’s!

But since you’re already showing little-to-no regard for your own well-being by watching the Home Run Derby, you might as well go whole hog. Or at least whole tater. With that in mind, we proudly present this year’s official Home Run Derby drinking game!

[Note: this is the official drinking game, not the official murder game, so we’re not asking you to drink every time Chris Berman says the word “back.” Be careful out there, everyone.]

The Home Run Derby can be a hard contest to predict, but that didn’t stop people from trying anyway. Bovada Official posted their odds on who will win, and the favorites come as no surprise.

The two hometown players, Cano and Wright, are near the bottom of the odds despite the fact that both have done well in past derbies. The odd choice, Michael Cuddyer, is given the lowest chances of winning, and no one is particularly surprised at that.

The event will be televised live on ESPN at 8 p.m. ET and is available online through the WatchESPN app and WatchESPN.com.

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Cuddyer is having the best season of his career, including a .332/.395/.567 batting line with 15 home runs, tied for 27th in the majors. He is also recently coming off a 27-game hitting streak.

The Home Run Derby is meant to be an entertaining show of power. What’s more entertaining than a superstar second-year player who still isn’t old enough to drink legally, yet has already hit 35 home runs over his first 195 games?

Davis, who joined some exclusive company over the weekend due to his home run-hitting prowess, will be joined by a pair of past derby winners and a fellow first-time participant with loads of raw power.

Davis has never participated in the Home Run Derby prior to this year, but he is the favorite to win the contest, according to Bovada.

Up to a certain point, it’s easy to see how fantastically famous people made it to where they are. There’s some unique and relatively valuable talent involved -- because these are famous people, it’s more likely to be something like “big curveball” or “appearing comfortable on camera” than, like, a special skill for kidney transplants or cartography -- and there is further luck that follows on the initial good fortune of having been born with that talent. And then there is invariably a great deal of work. This all makes sense.

It’s our right as non-famous people to grouse at how different all that work is from ours, and how those hours spent getting better at rapping or identifying blitzes seem more fun than our hours doing the things we have to do for our paychecks. But it’s worth remembering that, sometime before they became inevitable, inexorable and vexingly permanent -- and long before they were announced as the two dominant noise-sources at this year’s Home Run Derby -- Pitbull and Chris Berman earned what they got.

The 2013 Home Run Derby will be held 8 p.m. Monday. As has been the case for the previous 20 years, the event will be aired exclusively by ESPN and its affiliates.

ESPN will have a special Home Run Derby edition of Baseball Tonight beginning at 7 p.m. The derby itself will air at 8 p.m. on ESPN, ESPN Deportes, or WatchESPN for streaming devices. ESPN Radio will air the derby as well, with coverage beginning at 7:30 p.m. Following the derby, ESPN will broadcast the 2013 All-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball Game.

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The annual MLB All-Star Game is nearly here. There are jokes made every year about the value and watchability of the All-Star Game, but it, along with the Home Run Derby the night before, are almost always two of the most-watched programs of the summer. Mock the All-Star Game at your own risk, but the TV networks use it as a way to show off some of their biggest stars and promote important upcoming things.

Here’s a network-by-network look at what three networks are doing around the All-Star Game.