Baseball can’t leave it alone when it works

On our block, you had to hit the ball over the telephone line.

What was a home run on the street where you grew up? Over the hedges? Past the red Plymouth?

Generations of American youngsters grew up with Home Run Derby. How did Major League Baseball manage to mess it up?

We grew up watching the All-Star Game, too, back when the idea was to see the players, not just to help the Red Sox.

What happened?

Even at its self-indulgent, Joe Buck-emceed worst, baseball’s All-Star Game is still the best of its species. It’s the only one of the four major All-Star fests where the players actually try to play their same game.

Real pitches, real swings, real diving defensive plays.

So why trick it up?

Commissioner Bud Selig again tried to explain this week why home-field advantage in the World Series now goes to the winning league in the All-Star Game. Because managers were running out of players, he said.

Now, therefore, we have a scene such as the one that Fox cameras captured before the game in the American League clubhouse. George Brett, Hall of Fame third baseman, implored the American Leaguers to win the game because now it "means something."

But why does it have to mean something? Players weren’t lollygagging around the bases. Pitchers weren’t lobbing the ball to home plate.

Selig made it sound unsportsmanlike that the All-Star managers were actually trying to get all of their players into the game.

He doesn’t get it, obviously. People tune into the game to see the players, not him handing over a trophy.

Would people not watch the baseball All-Star Game if a network wasn’t reminding them, 10 times an hour, "And this time it really means something"?

Selig claimed on the David Letterman show Monday that managers have thanked him for lifting the burden of having to play all the players. The logic doesn’t make sense. If the manager tells an All-Star backup that he couldn’t put him in because he "wanted to win the game," the player is still going to grumble.

Tying the World Series to the All-Star Game outcome is like adding a gasoline tax on ballpark hot dogs.

We’re already seeing it affect the way that the managers fill out their rosters.

In the 1966 game, for example, the National League pitching staff included Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Jim Bunning, Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry. Fans want to see the big-name starting pitchers from both leagues.

Instead, this year’s managers both stocked up on relief pitchers, including set-up men. They built bullpens as if it were a real game.

After rescinding the World Series tie-in, two simple rules would solve a lot of these things. First, the designated hitter should be used in every All-Star Game. With all those great hitters around, it’s silly to make any pitchers have to bat.

Secondly, starting players should be allowed to re-enter the game. In that way, managers could have no qualms about clearing their benches, and the fans would have the players they voted for on the field at the end of the game.

Not in the rules? No, but neither is the commissioner declaring a tie. Fix the rules, Bud.

And while he’s at it, the Home Run Derby clearly needs tweaking. Even before Josh Hamilton ran out of gas Monday night, fans had complained in recent years that the derby was too long. Three rounds are at least one round too many.

Why not narrow the field to two after a single, six-out (not 10) preliminary round? The finals could mimic the format that the old Home Run Derby television program used to — batters alternate, three outs at a time, for five innings.

The current way just isn’t working, as the tired swings in Monday’s third round proved.

It should be a slugging exhibition, not a window-breaking marathon.