By Will Burchfield @burchie_kid

The MLB Home Run Derby will take flight on Monday night, and with it the customary griping and grousing from those who watch.

It's too long, the fans will object – just before wishing it hadn't ended so soon.

It's too inclusive, they'll insist – just before claiming their favorite player should have gotten a shot.

It's too boring, they'll say – just before picking their jaw up off the floor.

The complaints surrounding the Home Run Derby are both empty and contrived. People tune in, year after year, and the clamor rings hollow. The Derby has become one of ESPN's most popular broadcasts since it was aired live for the fist time in 1998 because there are few things as exhilarating in sports as watching strapping batsmen pummel baseballs to the moon.

No home run is identical to another. Not all dingers are created the same. That's what makes the Derby such unending fun. There are upper decks to pepper, scoreboards to punish, and pools and bushes and bays to populate. Tonight, at San Diego's Petco Park, Todd Frazier might club one off the Western Metal Supply Co. sign in left field. Adam Duval – Adam Duvall!! – might dent the batter's eye in dead center. Robinson Cano might launch one out of the darn stadium.

We'll all lose our minds for a moment, and regain them only until the next ball takes flight.

The Home Run Derby is a thrill for the way it continually outdoes itself. We are stunned by one bomb and then awed further still by those that follow. And there is a sense of friendly one-upmanship between the hitters, each slugger challenging the others to bush the bar higher.

455 to left? Make it 470.

On a line to right? Make it right center.

Opposite field? I'll do it twice.

Whatever you can do, I can do better.

Last year's revamped format added an extra measure of excitement to the event. With hitters now on the clock for four minutes each round, they don't have the luxury of looking pitches off and taking their time. Instead, they must pack as many hellacious swings as possible into a tight four-minute window, with the option of using one 45-second timeout.

People scoff at the idea of a mid-round breather. They dismiss the notion that fatigue could set in from such a routine task. Only it's not routine at all. Hitters don't unload with such might, swing after swing, like they do in the Derby. They don't aim for the heavens, again and again, like they do when a whole stadium is watching. Their huffing and puffing at the end of each round reveals the unbridled vigor behind their silky-smooth swings.

The Home Run Derby doesn't need fixing, as so many critics suggest. It hasn't lost its luster, as others object. It is a dazzling celebration of baseball's defining play, a tribute to the game's most enduring image: an uncoiled bat and a ball soaring toward the bleachers. It trumpets the sport's highest possibilities as much as the All-Star Game itself.

Fans that "just aren't interested" will vow to watch something else. But they'll tune in anyway.  Fans that are "tired of it" will groan about seeing the same thing. But they'll point and ogle all the same. And fans that suggest "it doesn't mean anything" will stick to that claim until they have a horse in the race.

Then they'll be on their feet, shouting, "Go, ball, go!!! Get out, get out!!"

The Home Run Derby is a piece of entertainment. So is the All-Star Game. So is baseball. It was designed for our amusement. People say it's failing to fulfill its purpose.

Let's see what they say when Giancarlo Stanton rips the cowhide off a baseball tonight and sends it into outer space.