ARod To Skip The HRD

If you want to see ARod try to hit long balls at the All Star Game events, you'll have to watch the actual All Star Game as Alex is declining to participate in the home run derby. Keeping in mind that this is the last ASG to ever be held at Yankee Stadium II, and that the Yankees' post-season hopes are currently being derailed by the league's finest pitching staff, please consider the following questions:

1) Does Alex owe it to New York fans to participate in the HRD?

2) Does anyone actually care about the 27-hour long HRD except for the people at the event?

3) Since HRD homers are the pure distilled essence of "meaningless home runs", if ARod changed his mind, participated (and maybe even did well for once), and happened to suffer a post-ASG slump resulting in a significant fall-off in his regular season meaningless home runs, would the same pundits that clamored for his participation cut him slack in future articles?

sorry, that's rhetorical

4) What's the better piece of fiction, ASG or BSG*?

*nerd alert