It is high! It is far! It is... caught by the rightfielder!

Ladies and gentlemen, the All-Star break is upon us! Mr. Bellows has already done a lovely job expressing his disdain for Tony LaRussa's selections for the actual game, but the All-Star Game is always a turgid heap of cow penises anyway. Though I'm devastated that Julio Franco was snubbed from the home run derby, there's no doubt that it's still the marquee event of this, one of the most boring sporting days of each year. So allow me, if you will kind reader, to handicap the proceedings.

Side note: I'll probably just watch my time-shifted episode of Man vs. Wild instead.

Our contestants are: Justin Morneau (fake MVP), Vlad Guerrerro, Magglio Ordonez (apparently in the contest because he has a high batting average), Ryan Howard (the once and future king - is it okay to say good things about a Phillies player on a Mets blog?), Prince Fielder (obvious fan favorite because he is young and fat), and two late additions; Albert Pujols (no home runs in his last 5334 at bats), and Alex Rios.

A cursory glance would suggest that Howard and Fielder will duel to the death. Howard comes into the competition on a hot streak, and he has the moxie one would expect from a champion derbyite. In my air-tight expert opinion, Howard will be in the finals again. But Fielder, entering the competition in this, his super-duper breakout year, hopes to be this year's Howard (assuming he actually cares about winning a home run derby). I'm feeling a first round explosion followed by a second round dud from Fielder, who happens to be my second favorite man named Prince.

Justin Morneau will make the finals, only to fall to Howard in the end. Morneau, despite my dig at him up there in the first paragraph is having an incredible season, with a VORP of 52 and an EqA of .311. I haven't checked how either of those numbers compares to everybody else in the derby, but since I'm now a part of the baseball "blogosphere" I feel compelled to mention them. He also hit 3 home runs yesterday... that has to count for something.

Those of you actually watching will have to withstand several terrible "Island of Dr. Morneau" jokes from Chris Berman. I'll be watching Bear Grylls cook a zebra heart with his shoelace though, so I won't have that problem.

I bid you adieu for now, loyal readers! And when everything I just wrote turns out to be horrifically wrong tomorrow morning, I will push it down the main page with a mellifluous box of blog goodness; a review of ESPN's television megaevent, Bronx is Burning!

Comic Relief

So I was at an Alan Shemper comedy show in the Catskills and Shemper started riffing on Julio "Nebuchadnezzar" Franco. It was pretty hilarious. You can read it below and hopefully it'll brighten your day as it did mine and you'll put the Drano cocktail back in the fridge to save for later.

"Julio Franco is so old, for breakfast he used to eat pterodactyl eggs and raptor bacon."

"Julio Franco didn't have pianos because it was so long ago... he had harpsicords, and his DJ was Johann Sebastian Bach!"

"When Julio Franco was a kid, his favorite activity was always arts and crafts. Or, as we used to call it: arts and farts and crafts. He used to make drawings... cave drawings! (Which is my way of saying he was a cave man)"

"Julio Franco is so old, he can remember saying 'sticks and stones may break my bones' and meaning it!"

"Julio Franco's first best friend hadn't fully evolved yet! His name was Ug and he walked on all fours!"

"There were two epidemics when Julio Franco first made the majors: head lice, and the plague - the Bubonic plague!"

"Julio Franco started playing baseball so long ago that fucking Jesus Christ was his first coach!"

"Julio Franco started playing baseball so long ago, that it was the Stone Age. No, but seriously, it wasn't the stone age... it was the Ice Age! No, really, it was the Stone Age. "