First of all, that "7 pm CT" time is a myth. We'll be lucky if we see the first pitch until close to 8:00 Central time, and that's one of the reasons baseball has trouble with these events -- they go way too late in the eastern and midwestern parts of the country, in order to pander to the West Coast.

They need to have the first pitch by 7 pm Central time.

A bit more info: as of now, no one else has pulled out of the game, and Derek Jeter still hasn't decided to show up (at least, not to my knowledge). Jeter really should be there -- he was, after all, elected by the fans, and regardless of how good a year he's having, it would be nice to acknowledge all the votes and to be in turn acknowledged for his 3,000 hit achievement last Saturday.

The NL leads the series 41-38-2, but they led by a lot more prior to 1997 -- the AL won 13 games in a row from 1997-2009, before the NL won last year's game. One of the two tie games you likely know about, Bud's disaster in Milwaukee in 2002 that led to "this time it counts"; the other was the second of the two 1961 games, on July 31 that year in Washington. They had a 30-minute rain delay and then called it, primarily because players had to catch flights back to their teams. For the second of the two games that year, teams had only a two-day break instead of three, and transportation wasn't as rapid as it is today.

National League lineup:

Weeks 2B, Beltran DH, Kemp CF, Fielder 1B, McCann C, Berkman RF, Holliday LF, Tulowitzki SS, Rolen 3B

American League lineup:

Granderson CF, Cabrera SS, Gonzalez 1B, Bautista RF, Hamilton LF, Beltre 3B, Ortiz DH, Cano 2B, Avila C

Today's Starting Pitchers

Roy Halladay NL vs. Jered Weaver AL 11-3 W-L 11-4 2.45 ERA 1.86 138 SO 120 17 BB 31 8 HR 5

Roy Halladay has dominated the National League again this year; now it's time to see if he can dominate his old league again. He is making his second All-Star start; the other was in 2009 while he was with the Blue Jays. He'll become the fourth man to start an All-Star Game for both leagues; the others are Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens and Vida Blue.

Jered Weaver has been outstanding this year for the Angels; his 1.86 season ERA is a big reason they trail by just a game in the AL West at the break. In nine starts since May 23, he has posted a 0.849 WHIP and 1.27 ERA. He'll be the first Angels pitcher to start an All-Star Game since Mark Langston in 1993.

Today's game is on Fox. Yes, it's Joe Buck & Tim McCarver. There's always the mute button.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

SB Nation game preview

This thread will serve as the discussion thread for the All-Star Game. If it gets too slow and you need another one, post it in the fanshot section.

Discuss amongst yourselves.