The Sports Monitor

With the NBA season over, the wall-to-wall coverage of LeBron James has subsided. Now, Derek Jeter is the talk of the sports world, pushing Yasiel Puig off the highlight reels for the time being. I'm sorry, if Jeter played in a market other than New York, there would be little mention of him. Instead, since he's a Yankee, his triumphant return will be bellowed all day today. And tomorrow. And probably after that. It's too bad that the rest of the media doesn't recognize him as an aging veteran.

My idea of baseball's All-Star Game is that the best players in the world would gather for an exhibition game for one night. So much for that. One by one Sunday, the list of players to miss the game grew. I think the total is up to 16 players who will miss the game -- as of this writing. Some, like Alex Rodriguez, who will miss four to six weeks, it's understandable. Others, like Derek Jeter, should play. Some of the best pitchers in the game won't be there Tuesday. Justin Verlander, C.C. Sabathia, Felix Hernandez and Cole Hamels pitched Sunday and are ineligible (another bad idea by baseball -- they should at least be allowed to participate in the festivities). Instead, players like David Robertson, Kevin Correia and Michael Pineda will be in Phoenix. The biggest story in the first half of the season was Jeter's 3,000th hit. He won't be there, either. Instead of being celebrated, he'll be watching on TV. Apparently, he's too exhausted from the...