The National League Gets Serious - Leading Off Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images Melky Cabrera helped make All-Star voters look smart with an M.V.P. performance. Somehow it is fitting that the National League's 8-0 victory in the All-Star Game was greeted by baseball pundits collectively harrumphing that there had been so much bellyaching about the N.L. player selections. See, the genius of the system worked out, the harrumphers say. How dare anyone suggest it would have been more fun to watch Buster Posey try to catch R.A. Dickey's knuckleball at the start of the game? Fun? You wanted fun? In an exhibition game? This is serious business. Just look at Tony La Russa scowl! Sigh. Yes, the N.L. won, 8-0, and all was right in baseball's superserious universe. Dickey was shoved into a bit role in the sixth inning (sigh), the maligned set of San Francisco Giants provided all the fireworks necessary and Detroit pitcher Justin Verlander got hit like a piñata because he actually was trying to have some fun (gasp) by throwing as hard as he could (no!). He got harrumphed at for that, too, although Jon Paul Morosi of Foxsports.com was one of the few who seemed not to lose all contact with the concept that these things are supposed to be entertaining and lauded him for it. First off, though, fans are supposed to bellyache about the All-Star selections. It's all part of the, oh, O.K., we won't say it. And no one ever said Matt Cain was a bad selection as the starter, just the duller one. And if Giants fans stuffed the digital ballot box, well, that's kind of how it works. San Franciscans clearly know how to maximize their Internet access. Yes, Cain, Melky Cabrera and Pablo Sandoval all responded to the Internet love quite well, thank you. And Dickey savored his moment in the sun, writes Wayne Coffey in The Daily News, as diminished as it was. The whole enterprise even got a nice moment from Chipper Jones, who, as Jeff Passan writes on Yahoo.com, threw himself a fitting goodbye party. And we'll all be reminded how serious this was when the National League team has home-field advantage in the World Series because baseball decided some years ago that fun was not carrying its weight. If you go searching for lighthearted mirth, you certainly will not find it in the N.B.A. free-for-all that is the free-agency signing period. That is, unless you have decided to laugh every time Dwight Howard's name is mentioned. If you had made a drinking game out of that, you would have been hospitalized for alcohol poisoning about eight months ago, so laughing is definitely the better option. Today's installment of the Howard chronicles has the proposed deal to make him a Net falling apart, as Howard Beck writes in The New York Times, although Sam Amick writes on SI.com that the Nets have not given up. Supposedly, the new entrants into this game are the Rockets and the Lakers, and we'll stop there so you can pause the laughter and have a sip of water or something. The day did pass without the Knicks signing someone pushing 40, so that was new. Team USA would like to distract you from the signing news, and you can contemplate SI.com's Ian Thomsen's contention that Minnesota's Kevin Love will become the revelation of the Olympic Games in the mold of Charles Barkley. Once the Games start, you'll notice that the international basketball court now looks a lot more like an N.B.A. one, which means the American basketball imperialists got their way, writes Billy Witz on Foxsports.com, but it may not help them. The Games will also shine a spotlight on other big things, like the all-time Olympic medal winner whom the swimmer Michael Phelps is chasing for that honor. As Nick Zaccardi and Gennady Fyodorov write on SI.com, the Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina is a bit of a phantom in Olympic history despite her 18 medals. In London, they are predictably fixated on the beer situation. Not only will it be outrageously expensive at the Games, it will also be made by Heineken, which at least one British politician is throwing a fit about. It did not go unnoticed that the Olympic team that was announced by the United States Olympic Committee on Tuesday for the first time included more women than men. You can bellyache about that if you'd like. But it wouldn't be any fun.