Why MLB’s New All-Star Game Home Run Derby Format Was a Big Hit with Rich

Rich walked into the show a skeptic of Major League Baseball's tinkering and walked out a believer. The new Home Run Derby format, the one with a swing limit instead of a clock, turned into one of the best nights of the season, and it did so because of a rookie almost nobody in the building wanted to win.

The rule changes had Rich and the crew expecting fewer fireworks. The first round capped hitters at 20 swings, then 15 in the second, then 15 in the final. What they missed in the fine print was the wrinkle that made it sing: homer on your final swing and you keep going until you finally miss. Add multicolored baseballs thrown into the mix, spinning and changing colors on the way in, and the event had a twist nobody saw coming.

The setting supplied the rest. Played in Philadelphia, the Derby turned into a home crowd rooting for one man and one man only, Kyle Schwarber. When Wilson Contreras stepped up first against Schwarber, the fans cheered every ball he did not hit out. "That's kind of crappy," Rich admitted was his first reaction, before the Philadelphia of it all won him over. Contreras hammed it up and was a good sport, and he got all the way to his last swing needing a couple more to pass Schwarber before falling short.

Schwarber advanced to the final, and the crowd got exactly what it wanted. Then Jordan Walker stepped in. The first-time All-Star had the honor of trying to spoil the party, and the math against him was brutal. Down to his final swings, he needed to homer on nearly every one and clear three magenta balls out of the yard, and the only human who had managed a magenta ball all night was the man he was trying to beat.

So he did it. Walker homered, and homered, and homered again, running out the string with his father pitching to him and his family in the stands as some of the only people in Philadelphia pulling for him. "I was on the edge of my seat," Rich said. "This is what it's all about." Walker took home a $1 million prize, which, as Rich noted, is roughly $201,000 more than he is making for the entire season on his first big-league contract.

Walker kept it humble afterward. "I had no idea what to expect coming to this Home Run Derby," he said, explaining that he studied the composure of the veterans who had done it before. "No matter what, they're staying composed even when their swings aren't going their way." He said he tried to take something away from each of them and, mostly, just had fun.

The nuggets came fast. Walker is the first St. Louis Cardinal to win the Derby, which sent Rich down a rabbit hole about Mark McGwire never winning it, not even in 1999, when Ken Griffey Jr. beat Jeremy Burnitz at Fenway Park. Rich was on that field, and he still remembered the story of a young slugger breaking his bat mid-round and refusing to give it up as Pedro Martinez tried to swipe it. On Philadelphia's ruthless reputation, Walker gave the fans their due. "They love their players," he said. "I can't hate them. I just got to play the game." Good for him, Rich agreed, Netflix MVP jacket and all.