"Back in the day," before I was aware of sabermetrics, I used to be quite a bit more interested in the debates regarding who deserved to be selected and who was undeserving. (Of course back then I watched Baseball Tonight and thought that Joe Morgan was a good analyst).

The non-selection of Travis Hafner this year is, IMO, analogous to the year that Ty Detmer won the Heisman Trophy over Rocket Ismail. Detmer's selection forever destroyed the credibility of the Heisman award. Similarly, Hafner's non-selection makes the entire all-star game a charade: .322/.461/.650...what's even more dumbfounding is that Hafner even possesses the important stats for the Harold Reynoldses of the world, i.e., "not only does this guy have "pop" but his average is well over .300."

The main culprit in the dissemination of the standard baseball myths is the media. Witness George King in the NY Post last weekend giving Giambi a "B" for his midseason grade. I swear I am not fabricating this:

"Batting average is the only thing keeping him from an 'A'".....

Top 20 in VORP in MLB. .412 OBP, .608 SLG. 27 HRs, 72 RBIs.

Batting average? Sigh....