Jul 9, 2016 4 min read

I remember when the baseball All-Star Game was must-see TV. Of course, I’m old, but that doesn’t change the fact it used to be a lot bigger deal than it is now.

Will you go out of your way to watch it?

If I hadn’t mentioned it, would you have known that it was coming up on Tuesday?

The All-Star Game used to be a big deal because it was the only time, other than the World Series, you got to see National League stars play against their American League counterparts. Interleague play killed that novelty.

There was a real rivalry between the two leagues because stars tended to play their entire careers for one team. Unless they made it to the World Series, a National League player – especially if he was with the Cubs – never played against an American Leaguer.

The 2015 game was watched on Fox in a little over 9 million households. That means 12 percent of the people who were watching TV that night in the United States chose to watch baseball.

Less than 7 percent of the people in the United States saw the game.

Compare that to 1967, when the game was played in the afternoon and 25 percent of the population watched. Half of the TVs that were on that day were tuned to the All-Star Game.

I couldn’t find the TV ratings for games prior to 1967 but I can tell you that kids in the 1960s wouldn’t think of missing Roberto Clemente batting against Whitey Ford.

How many kids will be aware of Tuesday night’s game, much less go out of their way to watch it?

Those All-Star games from long ago helped to create most of MLB’s current audience.

The median age of World Series viewers is 54.

Half of Major League Baseball viewers are over 55.

Those are people who remember when the All-Star Game mattered.

I rode by several baseball fields this week and did not see one game of catch, much less an actual pickup game, being played on any of them. These are fields that my buddies and I would have killed for. They actually had grass in the outfield.

It was hot and humid, but that was less of an issue before everybody had central air conditioning. We played every single day. At night we listened to or watched the Pirates on TV.

We grew up to be the parents and grandparents who you can see with their kids and grandkids at PNC Park.

The question is will those kids and grandkids, who don’t seem to be interested in watching baseball on TV, be bringing their kids and grandkids to games 30 years from now?

Probably not.

• Given a choice, would you start Carson Palmer at quarterback over Ben Roethlisberger? NFL Players would. The NFL Network polled players for it’s Top 100 list. Roethlisberger is 21. Palmer is 12. Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, Tom. Brady and Cam Newton were all ranked ahead of Roethlisberger.

I would only take Rodgers and Wilson over Roethlisberger.

Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown came in at No. 4 behind Newton, Brady and J.J. Watt. None of those players is better at their position than Brown is at his.

• When the Pirates traded a prospect to the Seattle Mariners last year for J.A. Happ, Steve Adams of MLBtraderumors.com wrote that Happ was, “A serviceable back-of-the-rotation starter at best.”

Since then Happ is 19-5. He’s 12-3 with Toronto after going 7-2 with the Pirates

• Last season Andrew McCutchen hit .328 against left-handed pitching. This season he’s hitting .224.

• Let me know how that All-Star Game turns out.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday sports column for the Observer-Reporter.