2002 All Star Rosters Announced

One thing I really like about the way the All-Star team is selected here in Japan is that unlike the MLB All-Star team, the Japanese All-Star team is comprised of players who have done well throughout the years, not players who had just happened to have a good 1st half like the players on the MLB All-Star team.

I am so sick and tired of seeing or hearing about players who are just a flash in the pan but are touted as "deserving of a spot on the All-Star team" in the U.S. just because the player played well in April and May and June. That is horse manure.

The All-Star team should be selected on the basis of what the player has done not only in the 1st half of the season, but also what he has done throughout the years. I mean, who wants to see a flash in the pan play in the mid-summer classic?

A classic case in point: former Seibu Lion Scott Cooper. I tell everyone this, but here was a guy who was just unstoppable in the 1st half yet he always slowed down in the 2nd half and always put up mediocre numbers for a full season. He was selected for the All-Star team twice-in '92 and '93 when he was with the Red Sox.
I always say, here was a guy who was an All-Star who ended up in Japan 3 seasons later and was out of baseball 5 years later. Is that the kind of player you want to see play in the All-Star game?

He's not the only one either. There are so many undeserving players in the All-Star game every year in MLB. Tony Gwynn should've been on the team last year instead of some stiff who'll never amount to half of Gwynn, but he was left off since he didn't have a good 1st half.

I guess the American public has a short attention span so they have a hard time remembering who's been really good throughout the years and only remember who was hot in the 1st half of the season. This BS has to stop.

The good thing about having so few teams in each league as compared with MLB is that if you're having a good first half you have a real good chance of getting on the team whereas that's not true of MLB (Jamie Moyer, for example). Therefore, the only quibbles I have with the rosters is that neither Hideki Okajima nor Atsushi Kataoka belong there by a long shot. But just about eveyone else who was deserving did.

I forgot to mention that one place where they did blow it completely, though, was the omission of Koo Dae-sung
for the PL. He is leading the league in ERA and yet Nishida didn't choose him. I wonder what happened there? He'd have a better W-L record if his team actually had an offense.