Where in the name of Mel Ott are the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) folks when it comes to the Major League Baseball Home Run Derby?
I swear on a stack of hardhats and safety glasses, somebody from MLB must be paying off the folks from OSHA.
One other possibility; our own governor, Rick Snyder, is in charge of the entire Home Run Derby operation.
A bunch of kids in the outfield in Kansas City Monday night wearing nothing but shoes, pants, shirts and baseball gloves. No OSHA regulations dictating helmets. No other safety measures at all in place.

Sounds hauntingly like the state of Michigan. Motorcyclists can tool around wearing nothing but receding hairlines. Helmets are no longer required. Same goes with fireworks. Common sense is no longer required. Everything short of sticks of dynamite seems to be all right. I swear my neighborhood sounded like downtown Kabul last week.
Sorry for the tangent. Back to the all-star game. Powerful men ripping baseballs with such force they’d beat Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the grocery store and back. Those baseballs either disappear into the seats or go seering into the outfield.
On the receiving end of those outfield shots are a bunch of kids.
Don’t get me wrong, it must be a thrill to be in that outfield. What a great once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and an even greater story to tell your buddies and later on, your kids and grandkids. Catching a ball hit by the Dodgers’  Matt Kemp. Grabbing one off the bat of defending home run derby champ Robinson Cano of the Yankees.  Camping under one of those high flying pyrotechnics from the Tigers’ Prince Fielder.
What worries me is if one of the kid’s misses. All of a sudden, that Crest smile looks like something from the set of Deliverance.
Anyway, another home run derby has come and gone. Nobody’s gone from the sports pages to the obituaries.
Not yet anyway. No thanks to OSHA, MLB or Gov. Snyder.