For all the crap the home run derby gets about being three hours of glorified batting practice, last night was probably was one my all time favorite baseball moments. Yes, none of that actually mattered, but I'd much rather watch that than your average mid August game any day of the week. Josh Hamilton is the most talented athlete in baseball and I don't know if anyone is even close to him. When he went on that streak of 15 bombs in a row he absolutely crushed each one. Even better, unlike when Bobby Abreu set the record Hamilton was swinging away, unlike Abreu would take two or three pitches each team and make the whole thing take hours. I really don't see how anyone can complain about Hamilton being the story last night, does it really matter about who actually won something that means just as much as the celebrity softball game (the last one ever played at Yankee Stadium)? Baseball is supposed to be fun, and Josh Hamilton destroying the ball last night was more fun than anything I've seen in a while.
In other news, Rick Reilly needs to stay far away from the booth. I never thought I'd hear a man say the phrase "it's a bad night to be an atheist" outside of the rapture. The man got paid a boat load of money to come to ESPN, and that's the best he could come up with? Granted, whenever I see an atheist player hit a home run my first thought is "f-you God!" so maybe I don't have the right to complain.
Reilly also came up with the line "this is like a Kiwanis club meeting" after noting every player out there was white. Now if the selection committee actually didn't invite Ryan Howard, the big league home run hitter to the game, then maybe he has a point. I really can't imagine that the conversation "how about Ryan Howard, dude's leading the league in home runs?" "Nope can't do it. He's, you know, black" ever occurred.
Then again, the man has dropped a mom's basement reference, so maybe it's just a really misplaced sense of humor.