The MLB All-Star game losing popularity

From what I've read on various sites lately, people in charge of MLB are worried about the All-Star game's plummeting ratings in recent years and are trying to figure out a way to stem the tide, if you will, and get the game back to where it was in its glory days.

I really don't think anything can be done, and quite frankly, I don't care about any all-star game enough to worry about its ratings. Let's face it, the days of all-star games being popular and generating huge ratings for their leagues may be a thing of the past.

In days gone by, before free agency really took a strangle-hold on professional sports in North America, it was cool to see those rare moments when a Reggie Jackson would bat against a Tom Seaver in the MLB Summer Classic, but now with so much player movement, those kinds of confrontations don't seem nearly as monumental as they used to.

And baseball introducing interleague play into the mix in 1997 is another hit to the All-Star game's mystique. When I was a kid, it was really a neat thing to see one of my favorite Pirates on the same field as a Yankee or Angel, but now that I get to see the Pirates battle teams from the American League a handful of series each season, what intrigue does the All-Star game hold for me as a fan? I mean, interleague play was great the first few years, but now that it's a common occurrence every season, I don't see what's so magical about it anymore. What's the difference between the Pirates playing four teams from the American League every season and the Pittsburgh Steelers facing four teams from the NFC every year?

The 2002 game ended in a tie and the fans were so up-in-arms over it that commissioner Bud Selig tinkered with things, and now the winner of the game earns homefield advantage for its league representative in the World Series.

I can't believe I'm saying this since I live in a world with no true playoff system in major college football, but using an All-Star game to decide homefield advantage for a championship series may very well be the dumbest thing in sports.

I don't know what can be done to make the baseball All-Star game popular again, but I do know that tying postseason importance to it isn't the answer.

Let's hope that Selig doesn't get any more strange ideas. Next thing we know, the winner of the home run derby could have postseason implications.

Stranger things have happened.