All-Star Lame

Michael Cox

It was a tie. So freakin' what.

Nobody cares who wins an All-Star Game. Not once in the hours of coverage the week before on ESPN or FOX did I hear one host of one single program ask any other person, "Who do you think will win?" If you were to have polled the entire Miller Park crowd as they entered the building on Tuesday, I am confident that the question would have been answered, "Uh...dunno." All it means when somebody wins the All-Star Game is that the All-Star Game is over.

So why are so many people having virtual aneurysms over the fact that the game went without a victor? Because it was an excellent opportunity to show you all that they could have done better, if only they were king of the forest.

So recriminations flew. Scribes who previously lived in blissful ignorance of how players are used in a modern All-Star Game now believe it's a travesty. Bob Brenly had no business using up all his pitchers. Joe Torre was nothing short of foolish by using Barry Zito for one batter. What? Barry Zito was working on only one day's rest? Well, then Joe Torre was nothing short of foolish for selecting Barry Zito.

Unspoken during the hastily called press conference was Torre's other problem: had he forced Freddy Garcia (his number-one playoff rival's number-one starter) to throw three or four innings, Lou Piniella would show up in New York with a baseball bat. The theory, I'm sure, was to save one of the best starters to try and win an extra-inning game, but considering the ramifications it was a case of poor judgment on Torre's part, albeit very, very minor.

The whining continued on Baseball Tonight, where a red-faced Peter Gammons spat venom (and actual spittle) as he ranted that the tie "besmirched" baseball, and championed the good old days when a little rotator cuff injury wouldn't stop All-Star starters from pitching complete games. I half expected him to tear his microphone off and start trashing the set.

Others even suggested that Garcia should have spent the 11th serving up batting practice, because apparently even a thrown game is better than a tie. (Personally, I think Kim and Sasaki did plenty where that was concerned.)

No, the real problem was not that the game was called for lack of players, but as always with Commissioner Bud, how it was done. Selig was apparently informed after the tenth inning that one more would be the distance for the remaining pitchers, yet he waited until the last possible moment -- nay, he extended the last possible moment to be later than the last possible moment should have actually occurred.

Bud put his tiny brain to work, desperately searching for a way to not end the game. What was he thinking of? Drafting Hank Aaron and Willie Mays? A drawing to let fans pitch? A mascot home-run derby for all the marbles? There were no other answers, but Selig thought himself smarter than that. He called the managers and umps for a conference in the middle of the 11th. A long conference. He talked and talked, and all that was revealed was that the Commissioner of Baseball does not understand the game he rules. As if we didn't already know.

An extremely ill-timed announcement to the fans with one out in the bottom of the 11th helped matters not at all. Then, in another brilliant move, after the final pitch was thrown Selig ran. Ran away from the fans he claims to champion. Ran from the responsibilities he seized like Fidel Castro several years ago.

This was a prime opportunity for a strong commissioner to show his mettle. It was a time to take one for the team, to absorb the blame, to state firmly, "I am in control, and I will not allow these players to risk injury. If you have a problem with my decision, I suggest that you take it up with your local sports-radio talk show host."

Bud could have even salvaged a bit of the game. He could have reminded the fans that they had watched a great, if unresolved, exhibition featuring all the elements they paid to see (who goes to the All-Star Game to see who wins anyway?). He could have awarded not one, but two Ted Williams Trophies, one to Barry Bonds for his one and ninety-nine one-hundredths home runs, and one to Paul Konerko for his two doubles, one of which gave the AL a late lead. He just might have turned some of those boos into cheers.

But no, Bud, apparently fearful for his life if he should appear anywhere within projectile range of the fans, hightailed it to the press room where he began repeating "no one feels worse than me" -- a phrase he seems to rely on when addressing just about any subject (I understand Pat Riley has noticed this, and the Patent Office should be getting a package soon).

And how about those fans? They apparently cared so deeply about this game, yet they had no idea why it was called. Hell, even Tim McCarver figured it out an inning and a half before Selig. (Earlier, McCarver may have come up with the most uninteresting "trivia" ever uttered, in reference to Shawn Green's three-game, seven-homer binge: "That's about one every eight hours!") At least we know most of Milwaukee has watched the second Bad News Bears movie.

The prime rationale for the fans' anger seemed to be the fact that they paid $175, conveniently neglecting to note that they got two more innings of All-Star baseball than other host cities' fans. Faced with the years of shame Bud Selig has brought upon the game he claims to love, if it's a tied All-Star Game that turns fans against him, those fans deserve what they get.

And don't say this hasn't been an opportunity for self-revelation, either. Amidst all the confusion and conjecture, sometime between the hasty postgame press conference and Peter Gammons' bloodvessel-bursting tirade on "Baseball Tonight," I realized that I was enjoying the brouhaha as much as I enjoyed the game -- maybe more. Call me sick, but I think most of us who were watching on TV got more out of the game than the live crowd, which may be a first for baseball.

I'd say that the game was marred more by irresponsible reporting than by the tie -- story after story trumpets "the crowd threw bottles," not mentioning that the bottles were thin, light, plastic and mainly empty, that you could probably count the number thrown on one hand, and that there was no one on the field even close to where the bottles were thrown. No, sportswriters just love to say "the crowd threw bottles."

Demonstrating that the Associated Press has low hiring standards, stringer Nancy Armour wrapped up a game's worth of free admission by declaring the tie "an up-close look at why baseball is in trouble...fans were left in the lurch -- again." A search party is still looking for sense in that statement. SI's Tom Verducci delivered a typically out-of-touch (for SI) rant, declaring the game "the worst ever" and (cliché alert) "a travesty," decreeing that only sweeping changes would prevent such, er, travesties in the future. (I'll look at a simple, elegant solution on Monday.) Verducci seemed to be primarily miffed because his expensed hotel room wasn't downtown, and because it rained on the VIP buffet.

All this said, I agree that the game should end with a winner, if only because that is one of the rules of baseball, and the All-Star Game is still played by the rulebook. But as "farces" or "travesties" go, MLB's midseason exhibition has a long way to fall before it's nearly as inconsequential as the Pro Bowl.

about the author

Yes, Michael Cox normally appears on Mondays, but you try telling him to stop typing when he gets like this. Suggest he switch back to the drowsy antihistamines at mc@strikethree.com.