Insider | Short Hops | Love Letters
For this particular midsummer's club, there is no online balloting. There may, however, be a recall election.
For this motley crew, there are no paper ballots. There are only a few nyuck, nyuck, nyucks and Three Stooges-style eye pokes.
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| Bret Boone, there's no crying on the Anti All-Star Team ... but maybe there should be. (Getty Images) |
Please, for another July, won't you give a standing ovation -- or, at least, put on a sitcom-style laugh track -- to our annual eagerly anticipated, never duplicated, often debated and never to be imitated ...
Anti All-Star Team! (Pause here for the breaking-glass sound effect.)
The qualifications for our team are much more tolerant than those for Tuesday's All-Star team.
For our Anti-Stars, admission is open to our club in any number of ways: Embracing a deep, season-long slump as wholly as you would your mom on Mother's Day; raging anti-social behavior (and what a strong season it has been for that); pathologically comical behavior; dumbfounding injuries; or just sheer, general incompetence.
Believe it or not, for the sixth consecutive year here, we've had no difficulty fielding a team. Ladies and gentlemen, the few, the proud, the 2005 Anti-All Stars ...
First base: Doug Mientkiewicz, New York Mets.
Right up front, let's start with this: Doug Mientkiewicz is one of our favorite players in baseball. He is passionate, funny, self-deprecating and it is worth the price of admission alone simply to watch him in the field. Plus, his wife combines two of our favorite things: terrific looks with an English degree (that order should probably be reversed, eh?).
Nevertheless, his inclusion as a first-timer on the Anti All-Stars was sealed last week when, in the immortal words of Mets manager Willie Randolph: "Pull a muscle in the on-deck circle, how do you do that?"
Truer words were never spoken.
