How do you measure greatness? What does it mean to be “the best”? In most cases, people who are in a certain industry control and dictate value. Art critics and appraisers decide how much a painting is worth. Directors, actors, producers, and writers choose which movies will win an Oscar or Golden Globe. Day traders determine the cost of stocks. In baseball experts decide who…hold on…that doesn’t sound right.
Since 1970, fans of Major League Baseball have decided which players would start the All-Star Game (excluding the starting pitcher), supposedly picking “the best” players at each position.
One problem with this is, while baseball is America’s pastime, 90% of baseball fans know diddly squat about the game itself. An average fan doesn’t know statistics. An average fan, even if he or she attends 10, 20, 30 games a year, goes more for the atmosphere (beer, hot dogs, “oohh look that one guy hit the ball over the fence and scored us another point”) than a deep interest in outcome and stats.
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