5 ways to make the Home Run Derby actually fun

For loads of baseball fans, after three straight months of watching their favorite team play virtually every night, the Home Run Derby is a huge bore - an overhyped spectacle that provides Major League Baseball and ESPN with prime-time programming on a night when literally nothing else is happening in professional sports. More often than not, it just isn't fun.

Don't get me wrong: It's pretty awesome when someone goes on a Josh Hamilton-esque run, but the vast majority of the event is spent listening to Chris Berman bark unintelligibly while trying to convince yourself that watching glorified batting practice on television - for, like, three straight hours - is a defensible way to spend a summer evening. (In the interest of full disclosure, Karl Ravech will call the event this year in lieu of Berman, who's been mercifully replaced after handling the assignment for more than two decades.)

To its credit, MLB made the right call switching to a timed format a few years back, ensuring the event doesn't continue in perpetuity, but there are still plenty of ways to improve the Derby. What are they? I'm glad you asked.

1. Hitters must run the bases after each homer.

Coaches often say that a player's swing breaks down after 10 or 12 hacks. It probably deteriorates a lot quicker if they're sprinting 360 feet between rips, though. You think Gary Sanchez is getting off his best swing after two trips around the bases? Dude will be sucking wind. Seriously, though, making contestants race around the bases after each bomb would add another athletic dimension to the Derby, and because each round is timed, they can't just Big Papi-trot it back to the box. Any player who slides into home plate gets an extra point, too.

2. Ties are broken by players singing the 'Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' theme song. Whichever contestant makes fewer mistakes advances.

When it comes to settling a tie, would you rather watch another three minutes of batting practice or hear Cody Bellinger throw down some, "Now this is a story all about how / my life got flipped, turned upside down ... " (It's probably presumptuous, truthfully, to think Bellinger would know how it goes, given the guy couldn't pick Jerry Seinfeld out of a lineup). But if you think this tiebreaker inherently favors millennials, you're dead wrong. The "Fresh Prince" theme song is timeless, just like the "Happy Days" theme song.

Wait, how does that one go again?

3. No player shall hit consecutive home runs from the same side of the plate.

We get it, Aaron Judge. You're strong, and hitting baseballs ungodly distances is, like, your thing. You didn't need to participate in the Home Run Derby to prove that. But what if you had to hit from the wrong side of the plate, huh? Not so tough now, are you, Judge? For real, though, watching the best hitters on the planet flail hopelessly from their unnatural side of the plate would be highly amusing, and, like, imagine if they actually connected? That would be insane. No switch-hitters allowed, obviously.

4. Logan Morrison must participate every year.

Callously unaware that the Home Run Derby is one of Major League Baseball's prime opportunities to market its stars to a national audience, Logan Morrison - a journeyman first baseman who is somehow tied for fourth in the AL in homers - ripped the league for extending Sanchez an invite over him. As such, MLB should respond by making Morrison's participation in the event mandatory. Put it in writing, even. Next year, pursuant to the new clause in his contract, LoMo is in. A decade from now, when he's 39 and maybe even out of baseball, LoMo still gets an invite. The 2067 Home Run Derby? You better believe an 80-year-old LoMo is on the docket. As if you wouldn't tune in to watch Mike Trout's grandson take on Grandpa Morrison.

5. Bunted balls that strike first base or third base shall count as home runs.

Let's face it: home runs aren't that impressive anymore. Morrison already has 24 this year, after all, which should itself evoke skepticism about the memo MLB recently sent out to its 30 teams denying that baseballs are juiced. Counting perfect bunts as homers in the Derby would allow participants to conserve their energy, potentially, and it'd be so fun to watch the broadcast team trying to hype up a bunt from Giancarlo Stanton. Bunting is the true path to run creation, anyway. Everyone knows home runs kill rallies.