Sport and Cinema.com

Baseball’s Midsummer Classic returns to Anaheim Tuesday for the third time since the All-Star Game began in 1933, but the event has changed quite a bit since the city first hosted the exhibition (in 1967 when the NL won in dramatic fashion on a Tony Perez home run in the 15th inning).

Chafets’ examination of the history of the institution that is supposed to represent the best of the American pastime, comes at an intriguing juncture when the sport is really at a crossroads especially regarding performance-enhanced drugs and their affect on long-standing records and of course the game itself. What role does character play? Do Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds deserve an asterisk, should they get voted into the Hall of Fame?