Post Your Meltdown About The All-Star Game Here

[brian_igo]

Okay, I missed the call for "kinder and gentler" but...what a bunch of morons. Do these people know how to dress themselves?

After what I saw last night, I'm inclined to believe that major league baseball does not deserve to survive. Nuke it all. Turn every goddamn stadium into a flea market. Let those spoiled, steroid loaded, multi-millionaires try to pass off a .250 average as a marketable skill anywhere else. Let these cretinous owners stand on the curb with a Will Work For Food sign if they want public financing.

Screw them all.


Brian

[CurtisEdmonds]

This event -- no, this public relations disaster -- lifts up the curtain even more on baseball's dirty little secret; its complete and utter contempt for the fans.

The players are first of all to blame. The idea that the teams "ran out" of pitchers is laughable. Both Garcia and Padilla were pitching on four days rest and could have gone another few innings without difficulty. The idea that young starting pitchers would be injured by going a few more innings is outrageous. Only today's whiny, spoiled, coddled millionaire athletes would act this way. (And these, of course, are the ones who bothered to show up; lots of others didn't bother.)

Then the owners gave into the players. If Bud Selig were a man, he would have told them to keep playing. But instead, he shot the finger to the fans, caving in to the unreasonable demands of the players yet again. Then he made matters worse by whining about it, asking us to sympathize with him.

The level of contempt is palpable, and it is getting worse.

[d_fienberg]

I don't really think that this little All-Star SNAFU is either an insult to the fans or an embarrassment for baseball. I just think it's a mistake. Should All-Star teams carry larger rosters just as contingencies? Probably. Should the managers be worrying about playing a game rather than using all of their players? Probably again. On the other hand, if Torre doesn't use Garcia because several other pitchers pitch longer, the media makes a big deal about how he stiffed Garcia and then Torre gets booed in Seattle and has to listen to years of stupid whiney questions about why he chose Garcia for the team, but didn't pitch him. Yada Yada. So Torre and Brenly go out of their way to try making everybody happy — that is to say that they played everybody on their rosters 100% FOR THE FANS, so that everybody would get to see their favorite players play. And then it backfired. Ooops. Then again, this had never happened before and odds are it would never happen again. What percentage of baseball games go longer than 11 innings? I don't know the math, but it's very very very low. So Torre and Brenly's strategy to make the game a good one for the fans blew up in their faces. It's not their fault. It's not baseball's fault. It's just something bad that happened.

Out of curiousity, Curtis, what's your background in major league baseball pitching? Personally, I've always understood that it requires a totally different routine for a pitcher to pitch out of relief than to start and that pitchers have very specific and different preparations for when they're planning on starting. That's my way of saying that I don't have a clue how much Padilla and Garcia were prepared to pitch. Only Padilla, Garcia, and maybe Brenly and Torre know that. On the other hand, these are people with no marketable skills outside of baseball. They've developed these routines that mandate great specificity. Pitching outside of that routine might well hurt their arms. To say otherwise is just incorrect. And to encourage them to pitch with the risk of injury because you feel that as a spectator you're entitled to it is just odd. Three years back, Pedro started the All-Star game, pitched two perfect innings, but because he tried so hard, he over threw and wasn't the same the rest of the season and he cost the Red Sox several games in the second half. Or rather his absence cost the Red Sox several games in the second half. Because of an exhibition game. I enjoyed watching Pedro dominate the first two innings of that game, but I would have much rather watched him dominate the second half of the season. Padilla already looked tight in the top of the 11th. He had no control of the strike zone and he was overthrowing. If pitching more was going to put him potentially in danger of hurting his arm, you'd rather just have him go out there? Might as well just go to a gladiator fight.

So everybody just bitching and moaning and ignoring the fact that for 10 innings this was the best All-Star game I've ever seen. Period. Big hits, great defense, fine pitching, ties, lead changes. All played at a very high level. So, it ended in a tie. That's a pity. Is that more insulting than the NHL or NBA All-Star games where the players stop playing defense and spend a whole game hot-dogging? Not to me, it isn't. And nobody to anybody who actually appreciates baseball. For 11 innings Major League Baseball had an all-star game that delivered exactly what it promised — it showed how baseball looks when the best players are playing the best game as its meant to be played. No other sport can say that their all-star games do that. And that's what I feel entitled to as a fan. I'd much rather have had the game end in a tie than to watch two out of synch pitchers get sloppy in the 13th or 14th inning and then walk the bases loaded and give up a single just to get some kind of resolution.

Dan

[CurtisEdmonds]

The Washington Post knows the score:

Baseball's 73rd All-Star Game had dissolved into a pathetic joke, a phony tie ordained by the lords of a profit-possessed business, zillionaires so utterly detached from normal American life that they didn't even know that they had done something terribly wrong.

With the two teams fresh out of pitchers, neither manager wanted to risk straining the arms of the millionaire athletes they had on the mound for a game that had gone into extra innings. So it seemed perfectly natural to the commissioner and the players on the field that the game would simply be called off; after all, it's just an exhibition game. Never mind that 42,000 people had paid $125 to be there, or that millions more had stayed up deep into the night to watch on TV. Who could possibly care about them?

Never mind that the dwindling band of fans who see something pure and special in baseball might really believe that the rules of the game are sacrosanct, and that you play until someone wins. Never mind that to a fan's mind, the beauty of baseball is that you never know how a game might end, that it's part of the deal that when a game is tied, the players play on.

[d_fienberg]

Who is Marc Fisher and what does he know about baseball? You could have provided any number of columns by people who know baseball to support your point and you instead quote a Metro Columnist? He's just annoyed because he was up past his bedtime and he has no solution except that millionaire athletes should just through more hoops for him. Dan Shaughnessy in the Boston Globe has a good column that shares your opinion as does Tom Boswell in the Post. Those guys at least know what they're talking about. Marc Fisher just has a podium.

I return one more time to Pedro. The guy got hurt pitching in an all-star game. Until somebody has a better solution than that Garcia and Padilla should have just kept pitching, than I'm not interested in hearing it. Garcia hurts his arm pitching and the AL loses is that good for baseball? Of course not. And as a sometime Phillies fan, I'd just as soon see Padilla pitch in the second half. That would satisfy me vastly more than had he pitched two more pointless innings in an exhibition game.

The fact that that game had to be called was a mistake. And calling the game will alienate some fans. I don't really think, though, that there was a quality solution, only ways to produce artificial resolution. Measures should be taken to see that it doesn't happen again. No question. And all of the fans in Milwaukee should be offered their money back. Just as a PR gesture. The fans totally got their money worth, though, unless resolution is the only standard by which you judge entertainment. It's just pathetic that fans would have been more satisfied by a 10-0 NL rout simply because somebody would have won and somebody would have lost. 11 great innings of baseball and a mistake at the end.

Dan

[brian_igo]

Pedro Martinez goes on the DL if someone breathes on his arm. If he hadn't hurt it in the All Star game it would have happened a couple of games later. Can you name anyone else who has suffered any injury like this while doing a short shift in the All Star game?

Regarding the condition of Padilla and Garcia: Both came into the game on four days rest, both are starters hoping to go five or six innings every time they take the mound, both are healthy and the managers insisted on setting them both down after two.

I don't doubt that the excuses made by Torre and Brenley have validity to the players and the teams. And as a D-Backs fan, Brenley is my guy. But that does not excuse what Curtis so rightly called the contempt of all involved for the fans of the game. Once again, we were the one group they didn't consider.

This was maybe the best All Star game of my 37 years on this earth, and with the talk of work stoppages and steroids it was a gift baseball desperately needed. But like Forrest Selig rushing to whack the Twins just weeks after the best World Series in memory last fall, last night baseball had another chance to show they cared about the fans and they chose to piss on us instead.

I go to four or five games a year. Not many, but every game is a five or six hour round trip drive and over a c-note between gas, ticket, food and parking. I have to make a notable sacrifice of my time and money to support baseball, and when in return I'm told a starting pitcher can't be asked to throw three or four innings because this is only an exhibition game, that makes it clear to me that baseball will make no sacrifice or suffer no incovenience for its fans.

I don't know of many fans who are walking away from baseball because of what happened last night. But last night was more proof that the game is rotted. Last night was the best demonstration yet of how totally fed up fans are with these idiots. It should be a clear warning that the biggest issue in these labor negotiations and drug scandals is the future viability of the game itself. Baseball goes forward at its own peril.


Brian

[quasar]

There's always a chance of injury. If avoiding injury is the prime objective of the allstar game, keep everyone home and simulate what you think would happen (ick). I don't think people could get hurt is a valid reason to cut the game short. Not when they could have been getting hurt all along.

Janice

[Joubert[$]]

I think that the situation was made worse when the pitchers didn't immediately run to a mic and say, "I didn't feel comfortable continuing to throw." or "I didn't want to risk hurting my team by continuing to throw".

Throw in Selig's vanishing act and the counterclaims from the television producers, and the entire situation was one where no one heard a consistent story.

I suspect that had Selig, the two managers and the two pitchers appeared at a joint press conference and stayed on message that we would have been complaining about an unfortunate, but understandable situation. Instead, everyone scrambled and went into spin mode.

I'm not saying that a consistent message will solve baseball's woes. I just think that poor communication made this situation worse.

[brian_igo]

I don't know if you heard this, George, but a smart reporter asked Larry Bowa if he was concerned about his guy going more than two innings.

Bowa looked at the guy like he'd just asked the dumbest question on earth. (Okay, Larry Bowa probably does that fifty, hundred times a day easy, but...) One manager was not concerned if his pitcher had to face more than eight or nine batters.

I think Selig, Torre and Brenly, and the players had a problem staying on message because there wasn't one message. Some players, like Curt Shilling, understand that a lot of fans are sick of being jerked around by baseball. Other players, like Bonds, know they can do anything they want and people will still come out to the yard. Owners are the same.

I never believed what happened at the All Star game was just about tired arms or the risk of injury. That might have been a small factor, but it was also about trying to get out of Milwaukee at one am. It was about players who had to be in Miami for a day game in ten hours. It was a chance for managers who have to play out meaningless midnight games against the Rangers or Marlins getting to pull the plug. And it was most definitely about players who only care about making the All Star team because of a bonus in their contract and the egoboo in the pregame events.

Bottom line, the people on the field who wanted to call the game had a lot more reasons, and probably a lot more votes, than those who wanted to play it out. And no one thought about staying on message because if they were aware of such problems, they would have chosen to finish the game.


Brian

[Joubert[$]]

Originally posted by brian_igo
I don't know if you heard this, George, but a smart reporter asked Larry Bowa if he was concerned about his guy going more than two innings.

Bowa looked at the guy like he'd just asked the dumbest question on earth. (Okay, Larry Bowa probably does that fifty, hundred times a day easy, but...) One manager was not concerned if his pitcher had to face more than eight or nine batters.

(snip)

Bottom line, the people on the field who wanted to call the game had a lot more reasons, and probably a lot more votes, than those who wanted to play it out. And no one thought about staying on message because if they were aware of such problems, they would have chosen to finish the game.


Brian

I missed the Bowa Incident.

You're probably right about the inconsistent message being traced back to a lack of unity on why the game should be called.

[mrisch[$]]

BFD guys. It's just the all star game. Do you actually expect people to play? Of course they rotate pitchers every couple of innings. It's no different in Hockey or in the Pro Bowl.

Lack of unity is indeed a PR screwup, but calling the game is a yawner in my book.

[rich2003dm]

The All Star game just ain't what it used to be.

Not anymore.

The excitement was always about how "our" guys would do against "their" guys. And it gave us a chance to see some of the stars from the "other" league (the one we didn't watch).

Those issues became moot since the introduction of inter-league play.

Now the All Star game seems to be just an ego-boost for the players. And a chance for them to fatten their wallets a little more since being voted to the All Star team usually nets them some extra money via performance clauses in their bloated contracts.

I don't even bother to watch anymore, and I've been a life-long baseball fan.

Rich

[d_fienberg]

Originally posted by brian_igo
I don't know if you heard this, George, but a smart reporter asked Larry Bowa if he was concerned about his guy going more than two innings.

Bowa looked at the guy like he'd just asked the dumbest question on earth. (Okay, Larry Bowa probably does that fifty, hundred times a day easy, but...) One manager was not concerned if his pitcher had to face more than eight or nine batters.

But then Bowa skipped over Padilla's turn on the rotation last week, giving him a few days off after he compained about a sore arm. Well, the Phillies aren't so hot this season, so of course Bowa would say he doesn't care about pitching Padilla an extra inning or two in the All-Star game. But if the Phillies were one game up on first and he had to skip his top starter's turn in the rotation you think he'd have been annoyed?

Dan