No doubt, you recognize the title of this post as the incessantly-repeated two-line dialogue of a commercial for a certain beer that was incessantly repeated during the All-Star telecast last night, and no, I'm not going to give them the satisfaction of mentioning the name of the beer here.
But I swear, if I hear that annoying back-and-forth between the male (who "wants it like that") and the female (who says "you got it like that") voices again, I will take that "slim" beer can and smash it right into that green beer bottle.
There, I feel better now.
And that's after an All-Star Game, won by the AL over the NL, 5-4, which was actually competitive and interesting, featuring, among other things, the first inside-the-park HR in an All-Star Game, by game MVP Ichiro Suzuki. (There was nearly a second inside-the-park job in the very same inning, when Carlos Beltran hit a ball to almost the same spot Ichiro did. Had he not been loafing as he approached first base, thinking he had an outside-the-park HR, he might have had a shot at it.)
But you almost wouldn't have known that, with the fusillade of feature pieces that constantly interrupted the action. Did we really need to see a musically-backed interview with Prince Fielder, jarringly popping from seat to seat in an empty section of Miller Park, while the game was going on??
Your answer to that, I presume, is the same as mine.
It ends with the AL getting the home-field advantage in the World Series again, as they have every year since the current system was instituted in 2003 (actually, that makes six years in a row for AL home field, because they had it in 2002 under the old alternate-year system). This has made absolutely no difference in practice, because the results of the Series have been as follows:
2003: Yankees have home field, Marlins win
2004: Red Sox have home field, sweep series, two games played in each park
2005: White Sox have home field, sweep series, two games played in each park
2006: Tigers have home field, Cardinals win
Apart from that, I was pleased to see the Cub representatives, Derrek Lee and Alfonso Soriano, both play well. They both played most of the game -- Soriano the last six innings, Lee the last five -- and Lee singled, walked and stole a base, and Soriano hit a two-out, two-run HR that briefly gave the NL hope of a ninth-inning comeback, which fell short, and which I didn't see because, seeing the score 5-2 going into the 9th, I went to sleep, since I had to get up early for work, and I figured the game was over.
Most importantly for Soriano and Lee, they didn't get hurt playing this mostly-meaningless game. I will still never forget the 1977 All-Star Game, the only one Cub outfielder Jerry Morales played in. He was enjoying the best year of his career, hitting .331/.391/.502 at the break. Entering the game late, he got hit on the knee by a Sparky Lyle pitch. Though he stayed in the game and didn't miss any time when regular season play resumed, the knee bothered him to the point where his performance declined; he hit only .218/.269/.352 the rest of the year, before he was shut down with two weeks left in the season, and was never quite the same player after that.
So whenever Cub players make it through an All-Star game healthy, I breathe a sigh of relief. Enjoy the rest of the break.