Boyung.com

Not sure how it happened, but I'm sitting here watching the home run derby.  I've never been able to tolerate more than 10 minutes or so of this event during all-star week because it is so incredibly slow and boring.  However, I flipped it on briefly today right as Ryan Braun was getting started.  I figured I could at least watch the Brewer see what he's able to pull off.  After he qualified for the second round, I figured I'd watch a little bit more.  Then Josh Hamilton came up and started hitting monsters, one after another.  He had 28 home runs when he got his ninth out.  My only question for him is, why couldn't he get any of the gold balls (money for the Boys & Girls Clubs) after that out of the park???

I watched the second round, hoping to see Braun advance, but he fell short by quite a few to Justin Morneau.  Hamilton went out again and hit a few just to keep himself loose.  Morneau hit 5 in the finals and now Hamilton is back out there again.  He's having a little trouble getting his swing back now.

Actually forcing myself to sit through the rest of this, I know why I can't stand the home run derby normally.  The announcers are horrible.  They've talked about how Hamilton's pitcher is 71-year-old Clay Council from his hometown at least 50 times in the two hours that I've watched, including at least 15 times before he even came up for the first time.  I can't imagine how long the first hour must have been, with them talking about that and you had to wait all that time just to see what in the world they were talking about.  And when they weren't talking about him, they were doing nothing except talking about how "we're here in the house that Ruth built."  Yes, we all know that the game is at Yankee Stadium.  Talk about something else for a few minutes.  Anything whatsoever.

And now Hamilton finished the finals with only 3 home runs, so Morneau takes home the trophy.  Just to finish up on the above point, here's an idea.  It's the all-star game.  Why don't we get some all-star announcers?  No idea how to pick it, maybe just have the announcers vote, just like how the players and coaches pick the reserves and pitchers.  Even the incredibly dry, monotone and boring announcers that do Cubs TV broadcasts are better than Chris Mortensen.  At least they aren't repeating themselves after only 10 minutes on the air.  If they got someone like Bob Uecker to do the all-star game events, I'd watch from start to finish, just to listen to his stories, even during the home run derby.  Seriously, Uecker can even make an absolute blowout that the Brewers are on the bad end of worth listening to.  Can you imagine what he'd do with the best of the best all in one game?