Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The All Star Game is Rocky, Too!

You remember at the end of Rocky II, Apollo and Rocky are evenly matched and it goes into the 15th round and at the very end, they both fall down and the umpire starts counting and Rocky barely stands up and wins the title - well, that was the All Star Game in a nutshell.

Call this the revenge of the game without an end. When Selig called off the "exhibition" All Star Game before a conclusion resulting in a tie (A TIE? THERE ARE NO TIES IN BASEBALL!), he angered a great many fans. As a result of that game, the following year he changed the rules so that the All Star Game would have meaning - he made home field advantage in the World Series the prize that the winning team received. Because of that, the game can no longer end in a tie.

Unfortunately, the game is still an exhibition. And fans who attend or watch on TV want to not only see their "league" win the game, but they want to see all the stars selected play. Which means that managers are inclined to use up their players at an alarming rate, substituting willy-nilly, during the regular nine innings so that everyone has a chance to play. If the game goes into extra innings, of course, then managers have to scramble to make sure they have a team on the field.

When I tuned in to last night's game, they were in the bottom of the 14th. The AL was using its last pitcher and he was on a strict pitch count, and the NL had only two pitchers, and one of them was in the game. Both pitchers that were pitching had just pitched on Sunday and they were dead tired. Furthermore, if neither team won soon, both managers were going to be out of pitchers to use.

The outcome was probably never really in doubt. Someone was going to win because somebody had to win. Just like Rocky II, it was the last team standing that got the victory. When a sacrifice fly was hit in the bottom of the 15th, the final throw to the plate was almost meaningless because anything even close was going to be called safe by the umpires. There was simply no other alternative. NL fans might be a tad upset, but they had just as many chances to win the game. In the end, however, the AL simply stood longer and thus won the title.

Now, maybe Selig will get his head out of that dark place and restore the game to its original purpose - drop the whole home field advantage stuff and change the All-Star voting back to only those people who actually attend games (sorry Japan, but if your players are good, they'll still be voted in). Otherwise, sooner or later, Apollo is going to enter the All-Star game dressed in the Red, White and Blue and singing James Brown. And that's a sight none of us want to see.