Token

I sort of re-learned two things today from watching the Braves game. One is that TBS, once home to little more than the Braves and Andy Griffith reruns, is about to show the All-Star Game, some of the playoffs, and eventually a whole pile of regular season games. I'm in favor of this. I've always found Turner's sports programming, both baseball on TBS and the NBA on TNT, to be about as good as it gets. More Joe Simpson and Ernie Johnson? Less Joe Buck and Tim McCarver? Imagine my eyes lighting up like Jim Bowden watching a really fast centerfielder ground out to second base three times a game.

The other thing I re-learned was that the All Star Game is imminent, and that's bringing me down. The Nationals' only All Star is Dmitri Young, and it's hard to argue with the selection. And that's the problem: our token, only-there-because-everyone-gets-one player is a scrap pile gamble no one else wanted who's not even going to be around next year. I mean, yeah, good for Dmitri and keep it up, but it's disappointing that he's the best we could come up with to represent the curly W. Looking at the rest of the NL roster makes it sting even worse. There's 24 year old Russell Martin. There's 23 year old Prince Fielder and teammates David Wright (24) and Jose Reyes (24).

We don't have one of those. Who's our Jose Reyes? We're leaning pretty heavily on Ryan Zimmerman to give us something to brag about to fans of other teams, but he has yet to prove that he's not the fourth-best third baseman in a five-team division. The All Star Game is an exhibition for the world's very best baseball players. All I can think of is that we don't have any of them.