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NEW YORK—I’ve never been to a Super Bowl, and don’t really have any interest in ever going to one, but baseball does have one event that reminds me of the Super Bowl: All-Star Game media availability.

The Super Bowl is so big that the giant media scrum where reporters interview players has become an event unto itself: Super Bowl Media Day. Baseball’s isn’t that big but does feature many of the same elements: a horde of reporters, bored-looking athletes sitting behind tables, and a wave of media that covers baseball approximately one day a year.

So among the many baseball reporters who are looking for quotes for various stories they’re working on, you have talking heads asking insightful questions such as this one for the Mets’ David Wright: "Are you aware that Madonna is not a Mets fan?"

The media availability started at midday on Monday with the American League all-stars. and you won’t be surprised to find that the largest crowds were around the Yankees and Red Sox players. Ichiro Suzuki had his usual 10-deep swarm of Japanese media, and hot story du jour Josh Hamilton also drew steady crowds. (Imagine if reporters had known what he would do in the Home Run Derby later in the day.) Orioles reliever George Sherrill, on the other hand, had a lot less demands on his time.

Among the National League stars, Wright of course drew a huge crowd, as did Chipper Jones and Lance Berkman. Most of the Japanese media stayed around for Kosuke Fukudome, though the throng around him was not nearly as large as the one around Ichiro.

Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum was there, and he honestly looked like he was about 12 years old. His small frame and baby face make him look younger than he already is, and when asked his impressions of his first All-Star Game, he said: "I didn’t realize there were this many media in the whole world."

Dodgers catcher Russell Martin drew a steady stream of Canadian media, and he even did an entire interview in French with Quebec’s French-language sports network. Reflecting the Canadian pride of having Martin, the Twins’ Justin Morneau and the Cubs’ Ryan Dempster, one Canadian reporter asked Martin: "Do you guys represent a Canadian invasion of the All-Star Game?"

Martin had fun with the question, and at least that broke with the usual repetitive pattern of questions, which followed one of these forms: How do you feel about playing the All-Star Game in Yankee Stadium? How do you feel about being an all-star? How is your team doing and why? What other all-star are you looking forward to seeing/playing against?

You see the number of questions they have to answer, particularly the same questions over and over, and you understand why players often fall back into rote answer mode many times.

But we were able to get some good information from a lot of the players for future Baseball America features, which you’ll see in the coming weeks.