Let’s be honest: Monday night’s HR Derby was mostly a borefest. And it tends to be unless something spextacular happens, such as Josh Hamilton’s memorable display at Yankee Stadium in 2008.

This isn’t to say that fans didn’t have a good time at Busch Stadium last night; it was fun just to be on the scene and take it all in.

But the actual contest? On the dull side.

If MLB and ESPN insists on having this Tribute to the Steroids Era, that’s fine. I can decline to watch it, as I usually do. But I think it’s funny in a way, watching today’s players trying to impersonate the bulked up sluggers of the recent past and not being able to quite pull it off, making them the baseball equivalent of the jumpsuit-wearing guys who do the fake Elvis shows in Vegas.

Even though performance-enhancing drugs are no longer a permissible option, MLB can pep up this tired competition. Make it faster-paced. Tighten it up.

Some ideas, and feel free to add your own in the comments section:

- Forget about splitting the competition into two teams, four players from each league. This isn’t about the AL or NL. This is about individual power. It has nothing to do with a team sport, so just recruit the best active eight sluggers you can come up with, and give them a bat, and get out of the way. And if you can’t find eight good ones, go with six. And why should they have to be a member of the All-Star team? If it makes sense to have Adam Dunn in the HR Derby, ship him in and let him rip.

-You want to attract the sluggers who now reject the invitations? Put some cash money on the line. Get some sponsors to throw in and award $250,000 to the winner. Do these guys need the money? Heck no. Is it ridiculous to offer them a cash incentive? Yes it is. But players respond to money. It increases their comptitive fire. They like to be “rewarded” whether they need the jack or not. That’s why so many of them have incentive clauses inserted into their contracts, which will give them bonuses for making an All-Star team or for receiving Cy Young votes – even if they’re making $10 million a year.

 
-Let’s have some real batting-practice pitchers, so they can throw actual strikes and put the ball where the hitter likes it. We want the boppers to tee off instead of stand there watching pitches float away from the plate. No disrespect intended, but some of the pitchers on Monday night had about as much command of the strike zone as Todd Wellemeyer. Bring in the trained arms who throw BP for major-league teams all summer. And if a HR contestant wants to reward an old Boy Scout troop leader, a swimming instructor, or gregarious next-door neighbor Walter who used to take all the kids bowling … well, great. Leave ‘em some tickets at will call. As it is now, we’ve got sluggers standing around, waiting for something hittable to appear. It drags on worse than a bonus-material DVD of “The English Patient.”

- To reinforce that point, bring in an umpire. Old peeps like me will remember watching reruns of the original “Home Run Derby,” a 1959 classic show hosted by Mark Scott. It featured major-league stars who would engage in a one-on-one slugfest. But Scott would warn them: you can take a pitch, but if it’s a strike, you’d better swing at it. That’s because the show actually installed an ump behind the plate and he wouldn’t let Harmon Killebrew or Henry Aaron loiter in the box, taking a dozen pitches until they saw a picture-perfect offering. Monday, some of these sluggers stood around so long, they looked like a guy trying to find a cab in downtown St. Louis – which we know is virtually impossible.

 
-Junk the format of having each man receive 10 outs per round. Give them nine outs, three per turn. Match them up in pairings, like it’s a tennis match. Make them go back and forth. For example, Ryan Howard steps in and rakes until he makes three outs, then Prince Fielder walks in and take his cuts until he makes three outs. And it would quicken the pace, give it some flow, a real sense of mano a mano. Would there be some unfair matchups? I mean, is it fair to put, say, Howard vs. Fielder in the first round and knock one of them out so soon? Yes. But that’s life. It happens in the NCAA Tournament and the NFL playoffs and even in Major League Baseball, where we’ve seen wild-card teams have homefield advantage in the World Series. Who says it has to be totally fair? Go with a tournament format and build real suspense and drama.

– If you don’t change the format, then most HRs should win, period.  If Josh Hamilton finishes with 35 homers in three rounds, and Justin Morneau finishes with 22 homers overall – as was the case last year – then the winner should be Hamilton. Giving the title to Morneau would be like telling Tiger Woods that his tournament-low four-round score was only good for second place, because Phil Mickelson had the superior score over the final 18 holes. Crazy.

 
– Another idea others have is to make the winner based on total distance of all HRs. Look, if you want to see homers, then let’s have homers. Have the guys fired up to launch those 503-foot shost, the way Mr. Fielder did on Monday night.Again, I’m sure there are other ways to fix this thing…

Those are my thoughts. If you care about it, serve up some of your own suggestions. Thanks.

-Bernie