Vlad Beats Street Sense, Wins Derby
Vladimir Guerrero won the Home Run Derby yesterday, but none of us were really that stoked about it. Why? Two words: Alex Rios. It also didn't help that the event went over schedule by an hour and delayed the broadcast of the hotly anticipated TV movie The Bronx is Burning. As if anyone watched that thing either. Like they did with the Slam Dunk contest, ESPN has taken an event that was once exciting and dragged it out to the point of being unwatchably long. By the time Vlad hit his last homer I was ready to cut my ears off to avoid hearing Chris Berman say "Back, back, back, back, ... GONE!" one more time.

There is absolutely no reason the derby should last more than an hour and a half. The event needs to be shortened by lowering the number of outs per round. For the first round, 9 outs. Last time I checked, outs in baseball were taken in bundles of 3, so how does 10 outs make any sense? 9 is plenty to weed out losers in the initial round. From then on, they should lower the number of outs by 3 per round. So in the 2nd round, 6 outs, and in the final, 3 outs each. The lower number would make things more exciting by heightening the pressure and would drastically shorten the event. Also, tie breakers should be switched to a "Top-em" sudden death format, where the players would alternate swings until one hit a HR and the other didn't. Wouldn't this be infinitely more exciting than the currently used system?

They could also take a page from the NBA and add a second event like the Skills competition. The NBA now has 800 different events for All-Star Saturday night. Would it kill the MLB to have two? I like the idea of a skills-type obstical course. Imagine having players run to first, throw a ball through a target in the outfield, run to second, hit a soft-toss ball over the fence, run to third, make a defensive stop & throw, then run home, or something of that nature. I'd love to see something new like that for baseball.

What will likely happen? Next year's Home Run Derby lasts 7 hours and delays ESPN's broadcast of their latest TV movie: The Bronx is Burning 2: Clemens and Pettite's Slumber Party.

24 Raises Terror Level
After a sub-par 6th season, the writers of 24 were ready to overhaul the series and reinvent the format. This, however, might be taking it a little far. Just a couple weeks before shooting on season 7 was scheduled to begin, the script for the entire season was scrapped. Shooting will now have to be delayed by three weeks so the writers can pen an entirely new storyline.

Supposedly they canned the script for budgetary reasons (They didn't want to spend the money to film in Africa, as the script would have required). Whatever the reason, it had better be worth it. The way season 6 started, it looked to be the best season yet. But after the initial 4 episodes, it boringly dragged itself to the end. Even a career-best 49 kills by Jack Bauer couldn't save the season. Hopefully season 7 will bring the excitement back.

All-Star Game Prediction
American League - 17
National League - 2