Some thoughts:

First: Who thought it'd be a good idea to have the Cubs/Cards play a double header on Sunday in Chicago? Woudln't you want the team hosting the all-star game to be rested? Maybe Albert would have done a little better last night?


SHORTEN THE THING! I love watching it as much as the next baseball fan, but when it goes longer than the all-star game itself you have a problem. Nelson Cruz went 2 hours between at bats.
Either cut the field to 6. Or cut the amount of outs down to 5. Because by the third round, and after a swing-off, it just gets painful to watch.

Now, for a more absurd idea:
You know how they tried to have nationalized teams a few years ago? Well how about implicated steroid users versus clean guys. So you'd have a team with Manny, Arod, Jason Giambi, and Miguel Tejada versus Fielder, Howard, Pujols, and Mauer (Fielder and Mauer being the only two there I feel pretty solid about being clean, but still...). Tell me that would not be entertaining and probably cathartic for baseball.

And a less-absurd idea:
one of the more entertaining parts of all-star weekend is seeing the kids of the players hang out with their dads. So why not have a super-duper futures game. Get Prince's kids, Inge's kids, Albert's kids, and a bunch of others and have them play five innings. You can say you saw them over a decade before they hit it big.