Souhan: Shut up and let ‘em play

Baseball’s All-Star Game on Tuesday in Atlanta was a spectacular success.

You should, of course, thank Bud Selig.

You should also — and this might sound strange, considering the source — blame the media for making this great game difficult to watch.

Baseball has always staged the best all-star game of any long-running professional sport, for one simple reason:

Baseball is the only major all-star game in which the defense is invested in playing its best.

Football players don’t want to get hurt, which is why the full-contact Pro Bowl no longer exists.

The NBA All-Star Game has become an embarrassment, because offense comes too easily to the league’s stars, and no one plays defense. The WNBA has done a better job of getting players to make an effort — or maybe WNBA players simply care more about their showcase.

Hockey looks silly when the defense isn’t trying, which is why the NHL continues to try to find a format with staying power.

What we saw in this year’s MLB All-Star Game was a convergence of good ideas and players’ good intentions.

Time for a reminder: In the ’90s and 2000s, baseball’s All-Star Game was in danger of becoming the NBA All-Star Game — a silly exhibition the players didn’t care about.

Back then, many star players would play or pitch a couple of innings, then head for their private flight.

Then-commissioner Bud Selig angered many by deciding in 2003 that the league winning the All-Star Game would have home-field advantage in the World Series. He did so after the 2002 All-Star Game — featuring the Twins’ Torii Hunter robbing Barry Bonds of a home-run — finished in a tie.

It turns out that that embarrassment forced the changes that led to an All-Star Game revival.

Selig attaching meaning to the outcome of the All-Star Game reinvigorated the players’ competitiveness. Now, not only do all players stay for the end of the game, they are obviously emotionally invested in the outcome.

Traditionalists may never like the idea of resolving a tie with a quick home run derby, but it works. Instead of teams running out of pitchers, or having to reserve pitchers for extra innings — meaning that someone like Joe Ryan might not get a chance to pitch — both managers can play to win and use all of their pitchers in the nine allotted innings.

The home run tie-breaker was fascinating, and both teams came out of the dugouts to cheer their teammates.

Players were even gracious enough to agree to conduct interviews while they were pitching, catching and playing the field.

That’s where this event went wrong.

The baseball was great. The format was great. The players were fantastic. The media stunk up the joint.

We see it with “sideline interviews” during NBA games. These interviews aren’t conducted because anybody expects anything worthwhile to come of them. They are conducted because the networks are spending so much money that they feel entitled to ask for the world.

They like forcing star players, coaches and managers to do interviews when those people should be concentrating on their game and their craft.

What we saw Tuesday in Atlanta was, to delve into the modern lexicon, cringy.

Ken Rosenthal and Tom Verducci are exceptional journalists and writers. Tuesday, they were forced into the role of on-field and in-dugout cheerleaders, conducting interviews because Fox has spent enough money to demand total access.

In what felt like dozens of interviews conducted during the game, we learned almost nothing, and the largely predictable and clichéd exchanges eliminated any chance for true analysis and insight.

Put Rosenthal and Verducci in the booth with an intelligent former player, and you’d learn a lot, and you’d hear the best anecdotes that these reporters had gathered in preparation for the game.

Instead, what we got was this kind of exchange:

Reporter: “How are you feeling about getting a chance to hit a home run to win this game?”

Player: “Yeah, excited.”

Reporter: “Go get ’em.”

What Fox doesn’t get is that by maximizing its influence and forcing players to do all of these interviews, they are damaging the very product they paid so much to procure.