You obviously haven’t watched tee ball in my home town. The last time I went to watch my nephew play, I overheard some guys talking about the line for that day’s games.
Am I the only one not particularly offended by this?
Yeah; it sucks that the all-star game had no conclusion, in a sport that prides itself on having no clock and the game being over when somebody wins.
What caused this to happen was the managers’ zeal to get everybody into the game. That’s been going on for years, and people would no doubt bitch if a sizeable portion of All-Star rosters never saw action, on the off chance the game could go to extra innings.
This is definitely a “damned if you do; damned if you don’t” situation.
As was pointed out often on ESPN last night; the game had lost a lot of its luster already. It’s not like the old days, when players more often than not stayed in one league or the other for their entire careers and there was no interleague play except for the All-Star Game and the World Series. Now it’s like a softball game at a picnic.
I think it was Buck Showalter who said on ESPN last night, “You’re never going to see something like Pete Rose running over Ray Fosse in this game again.”
You mean there are people who actually hang on the result of this game?
I couldn’t tell you the final score of any All-Star game in any sport, ever.
One of the SportsCenter anchors - I think it was John Anderson - this morning had a unique idea. He said that if the game reaches the point where the teams have run out of players, you take five players from each team and have a mini-Home Run derby. Sure, it’s not the same as playing the game to its completion, but at least you’ll get a winner - and you’re less likely to get anyone injured. (Plus, you’d have the BP pitcher in there, not an All-Star.) I mean, it is an exhibition, but we still want to see a winner and a loser.
Another option might be - again, since it’s an exhibition, not a for-keeps game - would be to allow pitchers to come back into the game if and only if the rest of the roster was depleted. Or, as was mentioned earlier in this thread, have a position player toss an inning. The fans would love that.
And like Mullinator said - it’s a major embarrassment that on the night on which MLB names the All-Star Game MVP award after the late Ted Williams, they have no MVP. Pure folly.
Oh, and just had to add this - I was listening to the pregame festivities on the radio as I drove home from our softball game, and I loved the greatest-moments part. Gave me goosebumps galore to hear Russ Hodges’ call, and many others. Problem was, the yo-yos at Miller Park had some music obscenely loud, so loud that I couldn’t hear much of the fabled radio calls of years past. Completely ruined the moment for me.
I agree with Milossarian. The managers wanted to let everyone play, especially given the number of first timers. No one wants to lose a player in the All-Star game, which is really just an exhibition. Buck Showalter commented the previous day about managing the game if its close…do you get everyone playing time, or manage for extra innings? I vote for getting everyone playing time, and doing your best not to send anyone home injured or tired.
I do think they handled the MVP wrong, although. Better to name dual MVPs. If I were the decision maker, I would have told the managers, and announced to the crowd, that there would be one more inning of play, no matter the outcome. I suspect you would have seen some great ‘little’ ball as they each tried to push a run across the plate. Then I would have named dual MVPs. On the other hand, I’ve had hours to think of this, Bud Selig had minutes at best. Not that I think he would have done better with more time (he’s not known for his good decisions), but I do think it’s often unfair to second guess quick decisions.
[Now to go to my third hand, the managers and the commissioner should have both considered this before gametime, and come up with a way to leave a good taste in everyone’s mouth. Advance planning is a wonderful thing.]
I say bring in some fans to pitch. At that point…what the hell!
Hey, at least the trivia hounds will be happy for the bone.
Q: Who won the first Ted Williams Award?
A: No one.
I hate the North America vs. the World format used in the NHL because there’s no one to root for. A lot of teams have players on both sides, because there’s so many european players these days. It’s even worse in the AHL, since it’s Canada versus the world. Two years ago we hosted the AHL all-star game, and had two players on each team. The game was pretty dumb to watch since I had no one to root for.
The easiest way to fix this is to allow re-entry of players. It’s an exhibition game, there no reason not to bend this rule.
If you’re talking about pitchers as well as batters, it seems to me that the rule should most definitely stay in place. Pitchers are icing their arms after they pitch for a reason–it would be a really bad choice to put them back in the game after they’ve already pitched a few innings, and, as other people have pointed out, the All-Star coaches would have a LOT to answer for if they injured a pitcher.
I love the idea of bringing in minor league pitchers–it was the first thing that my boyfriend said last night, and they were talking about it on SportsCenter this morning.
Yeah, there are definitely good options out there, whether just allowing re-entry (which I wouldn’t have a problem) or making a position player pitch (question: were there any position players left over to do this?) or having one more inning, or whatever else. I guess I agree with Milo and D_Odds… it’s just not that important to me that the All-Star game have a winner.
Here’s my suggestion: Flip Bud Selig. If he lands on his face, the AL wins, and if he lands on his butt, the NL wins. Seems fair to me. Of course, with Bud, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference, but oh well.
I say good ridance, I lost interest after the last strike and have not missed it. In fact I have given up on all “professional” sports and do not miss it at all.
You’re all missing the real travisty with last nights game… that stupid looking field!!
God that was awfull.
Or how about the singer messing up the national anthem… more than once!
Zev Steinhardt
Not “awfull,” CnoteChris, just geographically inappropriate. It would’ve looked fine in, say, Arizona.
True, but not all of the pitchers pitch more than one inning. And I don’t think you’d see many All-Star managers throw a guy back out there who had already pitched two innings. You could see it for guys like Barry Zito - didn’t he face one batter?
I believe that both teams had used up all 60 players on their combined rosters. That doesn’t mean that they can’t move a pitcher to the outfield . . . Just tell him to stay put and don’t dive. Hell, the game would be over quick enough with an outfielder on the mound, the pitcher probably wouldn’t see any fielding action anyway.
It is indeed telling that the first Ted Williams Award went to . . nobody. Maybe they’re saying that no player today can stack up against Teddy Baseball. If that is the message, I wholeheartedly agree.
But there is a very good reason that Barry Zito only faced on batter: he pitched 8 innings on Sunday. He wouldn’t have pitched the All Star Game at all if it weren’t for this silly idea that everybody should play.
You want to see angry fans, you should see me if they Zito had thrown 100 pitches on Sunday, pictched a batter on Tuesday, cooled down AND THEN had to warm back up and pitch some more.
Yeah, just wait for the conspiracy theories on that one when Zito goes into a mini-slump following the ASG and then Joe Torre’s Yankees beat the Athletics for the wild card spot by one game.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it just plain dumb to put a position player in to pitch? Thre’d be an enormous risk of injury (i.e. pulling a muscle) since they aren’t typically accustomed to throwing a ball in that manner.
I recall a few years back when Kirk Gibson was still with the Tigers, he asked to be put in for an inning as a pitcher. As a result, he spent severl weeks on the DL due to pulling a muscle.
Happy
Happy–correct. Jose Canseco blew out his elbow pitching the Red Sox a couple years ago. Of course, his recent steroid confession might shed new light on why exactly he got hurt…
Gee, ** Spooje **, then how could you be in baseball heaven?
We have 2 MLB teams in NYC, and each has a short-season A league team too (Staten I. Yanks, Brooklyn Cyclones (Mets farm). Getting tickets to the minor lreague games can be tough - the Cyclones are sold out for the year. Guess that’s what you get when the season tix for reserves are $6 per game. And yes, we do get the occasional minor league game on TV too.