RIDING THE PINE: MLB All-Star Game concept needs to be scrapped

Tuesday provided baseball fans around the country with a spectacle that may never be rivaled again. Of course, I’m talking about the 79th Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

All kinds of drama surrounded the game because of the duration, 15 innings, and the excellent defense executed in the extra frames.

Colorado’s Aaron Cook pitched three stellar innings, but the National League couldn’t muster any offense.

However, the issue at hand is what should be done about the game if it lasts this long. Two pitchers, Arizona’s Brandon Webb and Tampa Bay’s Scott Kazmir, pitched on Sunday and each threw more than 100 pitches.

Now, if the game would have gone its scheduled nine innings, neither would have pitched because each manager, Colorado’s Clint Hurdle and Boston’s Terry Francona, wouldn’t jeopardize their health. Not to mention each pitcher’s team is in the hunt for a playoff run, an unwritten rule in baseball to sit pitchers who have recently thrown.

But in the 2002 debacle in Milwaukee, the two sides came up with a 7-7 tie. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig called the game after the 11th inning and people flipped.
Now, the game is supposed to be an exhibition of the best talent baseball has to offer each year. Selig made the decision in 2003 that home-field advantage for the World Series would be decided by the winner of the All-Star game, and it has changed the game for the worse.

Selig wanted to add some spice and draw in a larger TV audience, but at the same time it renders the regular season almost meaningless. Yeah, sure best record in each league gets home field in the playoffs, but not for the Series.

How can Selig and baseball justify that a wild-card team should get home-field with an inferior record?

Only Selig could render a 162-game season meaningless.

In the National Hockey League and the National Betting, er, Basketball Association, the best regular season record gets home-court/ice advantage no matter who wins their All-Star games. It should be no different with America’s pastime.

A way to get through all this drama without having to worry about injuries is make the game an exhibition, again. Within the framework of the game, instill this one rule which would make these problems go away — play only nine innings.

If the game is tied, oh well, game over. I guarantee the players wouldn’t complain. An exhibition game doesn’t need a winner. It would be like spring training in July.
Of course, there would be those who say we have to have a winner. Why?

Numerous games in spring training are called after nine or stopped before the ninth with no winner, so what would be the point?

Anyway, this would ensure that every player would get a chance to play, unless they requested not to, and the fans from each city or team would get to see their player(s). Every team is represented so the fans are not subjected to watching 10 players from one team make up half of a team, like football. This is why the baseball All-Star game is the most popular, by far.

If the game is held to nine innings managers like Hurdle and Francona won’t have to worry about using a pitcher who threw two days before. They could approach said pitcher and ask if he would like to throw 1⁄3 of an inning and go off his answer.

How did baseball turn into brain surgery? When people try to get cute and make things more simple, usually they end up making it more difficult.

And when that happens, it turns into a circus and those at the top get crushed by the media and fans and end up making even worse decisions.

From the clubhouse: Don’t try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls — it’s more democratic.

— Kevin Costner as Crash Davis in Bull Durham.

Steve Puterski is a Sports Reporter for Windsor Now. He has a passion for most sports and attending as many sporting events a year as possible. Though he may only play in the occasional adult softball league, he will give his opinion on the world of sports from the bench every Saturday. If you have any questions, comments or story ideas contact him at (970) 392-5634 or e-mail him atsputerski@mywindsornow.com.