( We'll be "covering" the All Star Game festivities in and around our beloved Busch Stadium through Monday and Tuesday.  Maybe you'll get some video from inside the stadium, or maybe you'll get a picture of a homeless guy wearing a vintage Cardinals hat.  Who knows. )

A stroll through this year's All Star Game Press Box Seating Chart is quite amusing.  While the main press box is filled with household mainstays from the New York Daily News to the Chicago Tribune to the Washington Post...it's also scattered with the likes of Kyodo, Sankei and the Yomiuir Shimbun.  The press box paradigm for the MLB All Star Game is sure to shift when Ichiro hangs it up.  But, that's neither here nor there.

As is customary for large events such as the MLB All Star Game, seats are assigned based on organizations, not individual media members.  For this reason, the All Star Game Media Seating Chart simply includes names of organizations, not people.  Well, except for one man...who, quite frankly, is the essence of the MLB All Star Game.  Over-hyped, self-important, and ultimately irrelevant.

Christopher Berman.



For some strange - yet obvious - reason, Chris Berman needs two seats in the press box this year.  He also needs padding on both sides of his media lair.  Either he's that pompous, or the director of media relations understood that it's in everyone's best interest to provide some necessary buffer room from copious amounts of cursing and man sweat.

Side Note: other notable entities receiving press credentials for All Star week include the "Alton Telegraph", "Arizona Sports Actuality" and the "St. Louis Jewish Light".