It’s the mid-summer classic, and though we’ll be missing the real games for the next five days, we couldn’t be happier the season’s halfway point’s here. How can you be disappointed knowing the Pittsburgh Pirates are in first, and there’s a bunch of other small-market teams in the playoff hunt? The second half’s set-up to be great to watch.

The one thing we like about the All-Star Game is all the festivities that comes with it. Home Run Derby, the Futures and Celebrity Softball Games – and then finally the actual game – there’s no better time to be a baseball fan.

While other sports have different events that cater to each fan’s excitement, MLB’s is just a little bit better than the rest. It’s great watching Blake Griffin throw down, but there’s only so many dunks we can see over and over. Here’s why MLB’s knows what the hell they’re doing.

Home Run Derby

Chicks dig the long ball, and there’s no event in sports that provides the same excitement this contest does. It’s literally just a bunch of dudes swinging as hard as they can to try and hit homers, and takes out the strategy normal baseball games has. When a dude can hit 28 homers in one round, not end up winning, yet still is talked about as if he did, that’s pretty dope.

Not Having a Skills Competition

When it comes to sporting events, there’s nothing worse than watching professional basketball players dribble around on a vacant court, passing to plastic cut-outs, and doing what a fundamentally sound player should always do. It’s like a f*cking fifth grade summer camp drill! They might as well have a free-throw shooting contest too! If baseball ever got a baserunning and infield skills competition, we’d probably decry sports from our lives. That’s how much we hate the entire concept.

It’s Outdoors

We’ve said before that there’s nothing better than a cold brew at a baseball game, so when you add in the fresh air from a summer night, it just makes it a ton better. People are out at bars, the atmosphere and energy are high, and baseball’s are flying all over the park. If there’s one thing every fan wants to do, it’s to catch a homer at some point in their life, well the objective of the Home Run Derby’s to spread the wealth, so it’s pretty much a glove-wearing fan’s dream.

People Can Relate

While we seemingly can’t get enough of the dunks and treys NBA guys toss in during their league’s All-Star festivities, it’s hard as a 5’8″ white kid to ever imagine we’ll do that. Though we’re limited athletically, we’d like to think that watching an overweight pitcher somehow jack one over the left field wall during interleague play is actually something we could do. We’re pretty sure we’ll never be rolling out an 11-foot hoop to try and dunk on anytime soon.