Time To End All-Star Games?

With two All-Star games this Sunday, the NFL's Pro Bowl in Hawaii and the NHL All-Star Game in Raleigh, North Carolina, we need to discuss the fact that these games (in all four major pro sports) are pretty much irrelevant.

Too many players back out because of minor injuries or other reasons, so that the "best" players aren't in the game. The rosters don't always include the "best" at any rate because fan voting either decides the starters or plays a part in the decision, and there are always undeserving players who are voted in because they're popular or well-known. And with the NFL moving the Pro Bowl to the week before the Super Bowl instead of the week after, the two Super Bowl teams' players are automatically off the Pro Bowl rosters.

As much as baseball likes to tout that their game "counts" because the league that wins gets 4 of 7 home games in the World Series, the game is a shell of its former self. The rosters are now bloated thanks to expansion and the need for enough pitchers to try and ensure that another debacle like the tie game in 2002 never happens again.

The NBA game doesn't interest me anyway, but at least they used to have a fun slam-dunk contest.