The Chris Moeller Archives

MLB All-Star Game thoughts 2011

--First, thanks to Derek Jeter for choosing not to participate tonight in Phoenix. If he were there, the broadcast on FOX would have been unwatchable.

--Congratulations to Jeter for getting his 3,000th career hit on Saturday. Again, it was his 3,000th, not his 5,000th, but fans were treated to a month of media attention to rival Babe Ruth's 60-home run season if Ruth were to rise from the grave and hit 60 this year. All perspective has been lost. It's a nice achievement but 27 other players have done made it to 3,000. It's 158 more hits than the Nationals' Ivan Rodriguez has. If "Pudge" Rodriguez lasts long enough to reach this milestone, and incidentally, become the first-ever catcher to do so, don't expect the same fawning by reporters.

I admit I was impressed when Jeter hit 3,000 on his odometer on a day that he also went 5 for 5. Had that ever happened before, I wondered? Turns out Craig Biggio did it, and only four years ago. Funny, I don't remember that feat tipping the world off its axis. Only one of these two games will be the subject of a "remember when" ESPN special with sappy background music three decades from now. Jeter's been a solid player for a decade and a half-- a productive batsman in a hitters park in a hitters league in a hitters era with a buttload of well-paid teammates surrounding him. He's also been possibly the league's dullest superstar and one of the league's worst shortstops, a natural outfielder playing his career out of position so that his boss can buy more sluggers to roam on the grass behind him and bat behind in the order.

--The Home Run Derby is one of the worst events in sports. The competition has more in common with the strongman hammer game on the midway than with baseball facility and skill. Also, you can't watch it on television because ESPN assigns Chris Berman to do the play-by-play.

--Several All-Star selections begged off their involvement with this year's game. Meanwhile, the best player since Hank Aaron sits at home healthy, and desperate for at-bats. Albert Pujols won the National League's Decade Triple Crown for the 'oughts, the first to win a Decade Triple Crown since Rogers Hornsby in the 1920s. He has never failed to hit .300 for a season, or hit 30 home runs, or drive in 100 runs. He's a top 10 MVP finisher every year of his career, and #1 or #2 seven out of 10 years. Halfway through this season, his average is only .280, with 18 home runs, and 50 RBIs. Eighty-four men were chosen for this year's game-- eighty four-- and Pujols wasn't one of them. Not named by the fans, not named by the manager, not named by the players. Yet the big question everybody's asking? Where is Derek Jeter and his 17 extra-base hits?

--In a heavily-promoted MLB poll this summer, Stan Musial's game-winning, 12th inning home run in 1955 was voted by fans as the greatest All-Star Game moment in history. It was announced as the winner yesterday. While this is a nice little addition to the historic legacy of the Greatest Cardinal of Them All, I don't believe this for a second. I'm not just saying that it's untrue. I'm saying that somehow the voting was rigged. Even Cardinals fans hardly know about this event. In the final round of voting, Stan's homer in '55 beat out Cal Ripken's home run in his final All-Star Game in 2001. Now I'm sure it was better than that. I watched that game and that was no big deal. But the deserved winner would be the moment that Musial beat out in the first round-- Pete Rose barreling into home plate and taking out catcher Ray Fosse to win the 1970 contest. That was the only time in history that a moment rose (no pun intended) to the level of defining one of the game's "star" players. It was also the game at its best-- Rose going all out to win an exhibition because-- now you'll have to pardon the cliche-- pride mattered.

Musial got a "make good" from Bud Selig on this somehow because the commissioner screwed the pooch in 1999 when he announced that the annual All-Star Game MVP award would be named after that pathetic John Wayne-impersonator Ted Williams, instead of Musial, who played in more All-Star Games than any player in history (24), and hit more All-Star Game home runs (6) than any of the rest. The voting fans screwed Musial when they left him off the All-Century team in '99, and the commissioner had to add him to the final team roster. Then the even-more elderly Musial got shafted again in 2009 when the Cardinals hosted the All-Star Game, and FOX botched its coverage of the pregame ceremony and President Obama was invited to throw out the first pitch instead of Stan the Man even though the President never hit a single All-Star Game home run in his life. Musial is now 90, and it was announced earlier this year that he's been diagnosed and living with Alzheimer's. Then he wins this contest. I'm a Cardinals and Musial fan, and I can recognize charity when I see it.

--The issue of players blowing off the game this year is overblown. It's mostly Yankees that didn't show-- Jeter, Mariano Rivera, CC Sabathia. They must not think much of their team's postseason chances if they don't care which league has World Series home-field advantage.

--Just a reminder again: You came to the wrong place if you want to hear some criticism of Bud Selig for the whole All-Star Game/World Series home-field thing. I love it. It's the one thing he's gotten right. I'm a National Leaguer to the bone-- and just old enough to remember a time when the league distinctions, the rivalry, and this game had meaning. It's an aesthetically and morally-superior league. For decades, the NL was the more racially-integrated league. It's been remarkably competitive and balanced for over a century, compared with a shameful lack of parity in the other. Even now it's distinct in its standings-- the losingest team in its history (Philadelphia) has been largely the dominant club for the last three seasons. The cities and ballparks are much better-- although the uniqueness of Montreal is missed. You've gotta take the San Francisco Bay over Oakland, Wrigley over Sox Park, Dodger Stadium over the Orange County freeways, Jackie Robinson Field over Steinbrenner Manor. Most importantly, National League teams know enough to only start nine players on each side. They actually possess the ability to count. The entire American League has been guilty of an ongoing five-yard penalty since 1973.

I've posted this a hundred times now, but the argument against a mere exhibition game determining an important element of the postseason schedule doesn't hold water because the old system was more flawed and nobody ever complained about it. What was the old system for determining which league champion had home-field advantage in the World Series? They alternated every year. Win 110 regular-season games and sweep through the playoffs? Too bad, it's an odd-numbered year. It can't get more random than that in weighing actual merit. The old system helped win the 1982 World Series for the Cardinals, but it cost them both the '85 and '87 Series.

--The game just ended. Lovely indeed. As I write this, Giants manager Bruce Bochy is high-fiving his victorious NL comrades on their 5-1 victory. There's no doubt which is the most dominant league now. That makes two of these games in a row (42-38 lifetime), and NL teams are winners of three of the last five World Series, even though they only had home-field advantage in one of those series. Congrats again, National League. The other side could have used a little more Derek Jeter, I guess.

posted by CM @ 11:20 PM