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The All Star game is supposed to recognize excellence, is it not?
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Yes, but not just excellence this season.
HOFers at the end of the line have been honored with All-Star game inclusion for a half century. Stan Musial was an All-Star in his last season in 1963, at age 42. Mickey Mantle too his last season in '68. Willie Mays, Al Kaline and Carl Yastrzemski also come to mind. And then of course there's Cal Ripken, who started the ASG in his final season at age 40 in 2001, a season where he ended up hitting .239 and with a negative WAR. These all-time greats are put on display one final time so frequently that I hardly believe you can call Jeter's selection indefensible and a joke, unless you believe similar mockeries are made every few years.
I confess to being an unabashed Jeter fan--BIG TIME--, and thus acknowledge a proclivity for bias. Still, I hardly believe the baseball world or a large part of its fan base was denied a chance to watch "excellence" by leaving Alexi Ramirez and his 8 HR, .279 batting avg. on the bench for the first few innings, or leaving a shortstop with similar numbers off the roster altogether.