I hate to deploy the Slippery Slope Argument … but where does this end?

In less than a decade, they’ve now added eight more All-Stars per season?

You really have to wonder if there’s any real limit. Will there be 35 players on each roster next year? Will the players try to get 40 players per roster when negotiating the next Collective Bargaining Agreement?

– Rob Neyer, SweetSpot.

Neyer, decrying the near-constant growth of All-Star rosters in recent years, makes a series of good points about how the expansion stems from negotiations between the players and owners.

But he misses, or at least neglects to mention the obvious one: Duh. The less exclusive the game becomes, the less anyone will care who is or isn’t an All-Star. If we continue down the slippery slope and the league is soon suiting 40 guys per side for All-Star uniforms, then at some point we’ll be seeing unexciting or downright pedestrian matchups late in Midsummer Classics. And that defeats the whole purpose.

Because to me, the only thing that’s exciting about the All-Star Game is the opportunity to see the greatest pitchers in the game square off with the greatest hitters in the game. It’s been cheapened a bit by interleague play, I think, and I could honestly care less that “THIS TIME IT COUNTS.” I watch the All-Star Game to see stuff like Pedro Martinez striking out three members of the 400-home run club (plus Barry Larkin and Larry Walker) in two innings.

And while I understand and support the owners’ desire to protect pitchers for the games that actually matter, there’s no real point in constantly adding bodies to the margins of the rosters. It’s the all-star game. I want all stars, dammit. GET OFF MY LAWN!