The home run derby is an event that all MLB fans get excited about every year. However, over the last few years on ESPN the derby has seemed to drag on and on.
Now don’t get me wrong, baseball fans love seeing homers being crushed out of ballparks everywhere, but the competition itself has begun to make fans weary.
Not weary of watching home runs being hit, but weary of John Kruk pounding plate after plate of barbecue ribs.
Weary of David Ortiz running to whoever’s at-bat, wiping their head with a towel, giving them Gatorade, and trying to say something funny. Weary of Chris Berman screaming “No no no no no nooooooo,” over and over again for a foul ball (and losing his voice 45 min in).
The new derby format is far more simple and will not take nearly as long. There will still be that really awkward first round where a participant or two will hit zero home runs and be made fun of by Prince Fielders kids.
With the bracket based format, the player hitting the most home runs (in the 1st round) gets a bye in the next round, and with the players that have the 2nd and 3rd most home runs getting seeded, fans are in store for MLB’s very own bracket mania.
In addition to the bracket format, the home run derby participants only have seven outs instead of ten this time around. This will be a HUGE time saver, and will keep fans from having to endure countless player interviews from Pedro Gomez.
In conclusion, this makes for a very exciting home run derby, and ESPN has the opportunity to really draw in fans that don’t have three hours to invest in fairly obvious observations concerning a players fatigue, BP coach origin, or an ongoing analysis on how great the Yankees and Red Sox are this season.
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