Eric Karros never went to an All-Star game.

Karros, who spent most of his career playing first base for the Dodgers, holds the Los Angeles home run record. He posted impressive numbers for most of that career and always contributed to whatever success the team achieved. He did his job quietly, never drawing attention to himself. Sportswriters referred to Karros as “workmanlike.”

So why the All-Star snub? The teams aren’t selected based on their performance; sports writers don’t pick them based on their contributions to their teams. Fans pick them based on popularity. Any fan can vote as many times as he wants. Consequently, big-name stars who are underperforming will garner far more votes than “workmanlike” players posting solid numbers.

Which brings us to podcasting. Currently, the only ranking of podcasts is at Podcast Alley. The rankings are based on listener votes. While those rankings can be important for podcasters seeking sponsorships or advertising, they have little to do with actual listenership. It’s closer to “The People’s Choice Awards” than it is to the Nielsen TV ratings.

If you think you detect a hint of jealousy, guess again. I know how many downloads Neville and I get in our podcast, “For Immediate Release.” Right now, it’s about 900 per show. Adam Curry,  whose “Daily Source Code” is this week’s 6th ranked show, gets about 50,000. I’m not worried that Adam’s fans are stuffing the ballot box and keeping us out of the top 10. We don’t have a broad audience appeal; we’re targeting the public relations and communications profession.

But still, it’s instructive to note than we have zero votes at Podcast Alley. None. That’s not because we’re nobody’s favorite podcast (although that may well be). I suspect it’s because PR professionals aren’t rushing over to Podcast Alley to vote. Even among business podcasts, that leaves Neville and me without a means of assessing where we stand. If we knew which business podcast really was the highest ranked among business podcasts, we could listen in and make some adjustments to our own show. (We probably wouldn’t, but we could).

There have been problems at Podcast Alley. Until recently, you could vote against a show, leading some podcasters to prod their fans to vote against the competition in addition to voting for them. That option is now gone. You can only vote once (registration or an e-mail address are required to vote, although I suppose you could vote multiple times by tossing in bogus e-mail addresses). And the slate is wiped clean each month.

Still, it’s not an accurate reflection of the number of listeners, only the number of people who are inclined to trek on over to Podcast Alley and cast a vote. If TV ratings were done that way, the original “Battlestar Gallactica” would still be on the air and “Star Trek: Enterprise” would be the top-rated show instead of a victim of cancellation.

That doesn’t mean “The Dawn and Drew Show” isn’t, in fact, the most-listened-to podcast; it may well be. It just means that we don’t really know for sure. As podcasting becomes more popular—and more influential—it’ll be important to come up with a more accurate means of determining how many people are listening to what.