Given the impending strike, one would expect that baseball would go out of their way to generate a little bit of goodwill by putting on a stellar All-Star Game for the fans, who, after all, are the ones who make it possible to play at all.
So, what were they thinking with this tie game bullshit? Sure, the pitchers were used. So what? They’re paid to play, and the fans came out in droves to see them play.
And then, to top it off, they didn’t name an MVP, in a game full of excitement.
Instead of giving the fans a game to discuss on its merits, they gave the fans yet another reason to feel cheated.
So, baseball players and owners, if there is in fact a strike, and another cancellation of the World Series, I believe that you will not survive as an institution as you currently exist. And you did it to yourselves.
A baseball game can’t end in a fucking TIE. What the living fuck? I disagree with you, Airman, about this being the swan song of baseball (MLB has done stubid things before) … but what the living fuck were they thinking?
You don’t end it after eleven - you end it when somebody wins. And no MVP? What?!
Actually, Beeblebrox, it can. It doesn’t happen nearly as often as it used to before nighttime baseball became a reality in the 30s and 40s, but games certainly CAN end in ties.
That doesn’t mean, however, that this ending wasn’t horrible.
Has anybody else seen the travesty that is “The 30 greatest moments in baseball history.” I did, it’s loathsome. Three events from 2001. THREE! No mention of Harvey Haddix’s 12 perfect innings, or anything Babe Ruth save the time he was traded. That’s right, the man who was named the 2nd most important athlete of the century by ESPN has no on-field accomplishments mentioned. The 1927 Yankees may as well not have existed. 1968, which had Bob Gibson with a 1.12 ERA and Denny McLain with 31 wins isn’t mentioned. Nor is anything by Sandy Koufax. Even Bucky Dent’s home run is more memorable and important than some of the stuff they have on there. Contract Bud!
Yeah, but… while ending in a tie certainly sucks, the All-Star game is nothing more than a meaningless exhibition, and imagine what you’d say if, say, you’re Lou Pineilla and your ace comes back having thrown 95 pitches… that’s one less start from him*. I didn’t watch the game, mind you, so I’m not particularly hurt, but I guess I don’t see the point in overworking pitchers for no good reason. To me, the managers have an obligation not only to the fans, but also to the players, the teams for which said players play, and the fans of said teams.
Yes, I’m aware that we weren’t anywhere NEAR that level yet. Would another inning have hurt? Probably not. How many do you want to force them to go before calling it a draw?
Hopefully, the MLB braintrust (and I use that term in the loosest sense possible) will spend the next few days thinking of creative ways to prevent such an ending from occurring at future all-star games, instead of conjuring up different ways to put a positive spin on the night’s events. One possible solution might be to have each team start extra innings with the bases loaded, or a runner on third, or some situation where a run is likely to score. Or perhaps some version of a mini-home run contest.
All I know is that anything, even a footrace between Jason Giambi and those Milwaukee bratwursts, would be preferrable to letting the game stand as a tie. Karma would dictate that everyone in both Torre’s and Brenly’s bullpens goes on the DL in the second half because of dead arms.
Call me a purist if you want, but when the AL brought in the DH rule, MLB began to lose it for me. The first strike too ('72 I think) was very bad for both the AL and NL. The first strike showed just exactly what the players and management thought of the fans.
Forgive me but when I was growing up no one…but…NO ONE called it MLB; acronyms had not reached their zenith. It was called the majors or professional baseball.
I used to love the majors. I attended my first live professional baseball game in Los Angeles in 1958; they played in the Memorial Coliseum in those years. I was living in Pasadena in 1959 when the Dodgers beat the White Sox in the WS.
Don’t get me wrong, I love baseball, just not the majors; I even attend our local minor league teams games, such as they are. I like Little League and Cub Scout, even High School and College…just not the majors.
Possibly one solution in future all-star games is to carry a few extra pitchers in case of extra innings. These extra pitchers wouldn’t be allowed to play at all in the first 9 innings. The reason they burn through pitchers so fast is not so much to save arms, but so all the players get a chance to play.
About the strike, if they do, they’ll be shooting themselves in the foot. People are still mad about the last one in '94. Even though they came back, they were still mad. Also, soccer is becoming more popular here. People who switch to watching soccer might not switch back.
I wouldn’t say I’m mad because it ended in a tie, but mad because no one thought it through. And there were ways they could have declared a winner. There are non-players who can pitch, like those guys lobbing it in to the batters in the Home Run Derby. Hey, as long as both teams agree you can’t call it unfair. I believe somebody mentioned that’s what they did last time it happened, but on this I may be wrong.
But by far the best idea I heard for next time was that those pitchers from the minor’s Future’s game which are already in town, if you enter a similar situation you put them in. Good for them. Good for the batters. End result a winner is named fairly quickly.
A really interesting idea I’ve heard recently is to have the All Star Game actually mean something. Have the World Series home field advantage decided by the outcome of the game. It’s a big enough deal to force the teams and managers to actually try to win, but not necessarily big enough to cause unnatural acts. Jim Caple has a nice article about this, and how nobody cares who wins the ASG anymore. They would have had plenty of pitchers around if they didn’t try to get every single player in the game. Barry Zito threw 3 pitches for chrissake, he’s a starter!
It’s a damn disgrace, the only level of play where everybody gets to play, and nobody cares who wins, is frigging tee ball, not the majors. Color me happy that I didn’t bother to watch.
And of course the best par tof this whle thing is that the first winner of the Ted Williams All Star game MVP award will be left blank. Way to cap off that honor.
**g8rguy
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and **capacitor
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have a point. But consider this: Aren’t Torre and Brenly there to manage? Are we supposed to believe in all their combined years of managing (a lopsided total, admittedly, but still) that they have never had to ask a position player to take one for the team and go pitch an inning? Never?
Of course it would be tantamount to conceding the game. But at least the fucking game would get played to a conclusion.
OK, so they called a meaningless exhibition a tie. Fans got 11 innings of seeing their stars play rather than the 9 they expected. Frankly, I don’t see the big problem there.
Why on earth didn’t they name an MVP, though? Especially since they just named the damn thing after Ted Williams, as Mullinator points out.
“No winner -> no MVP” is a bullshit answer, IMO.
The MVP, in the history of organized sports, has been awarded to a member of the losing team (Chuck Howley in Super Bowl VI(?)). I don’t see how a tie game can make such an award impossible to give. Surely somebody (I didn’t watch the game) gave a noteworthy performance.
Even if the rule for the All-Star Game states that the MVP award must go to a player on the winning team (which would be dumb IMO, but not impossible), so what? The rules didn’t allow for calling the game a tie just 'cause the pitchers were all spent, either, and they managed to sidestep that.
I’d say they should switch to a U.S. against Rest-of-World format. You’d hope that that would give them something to play for, even if it is only pride on the line. World Series home field advantage for the winning league wouldn’t matter to most players whose teams have no chance of getting that far.