Posted on Sat, Jul. 19, 2008

When you’re playing for these stakes, play your best hand

At some point in the top of the 15th inning of the All-Star Game on Tuesday night, the panic that was emanating from baseball commissioner Bud Selig — streaming from his pores in rivers of sweat, in fact — began seeping through my TV set.

I’m still trying to dry the puddle on the living room carpet.

I actually felt pity as I watched the marathon melodrama unfold.

Would Selig be forced to again declare a tie in a game that now decides home-field advantage in the World Series and resort to a coin flip instead? Or would he suffer the ignominy of watching a couple of position players take the mound to ultimately resolve such a critical decision?

Neither would have been particularly palatable, and I might have felt even sorrier for ol’ Bud if he hadn’t been at least partially responsible for bringing this on himself.

It’s all well and good to try and make the All-Star Game mean something, to have stakes involved in the outcome, but you’d better communicate the ramifications of what’s involved to all the interested parties, particularly the managers.

They’re still managing the game like it’s an exhibition that means nothing, instead of a showdown that could go a long way toward determining the next World Series champion.

When an 11-man pitching staff for each team for one game isn’t enough — even for a 15-inning game — then the managers simply haven’t gotten the message about what this really about.

"It’s not like it could have been prevented," Rangers shortstop Michael Young told our Jeff Wilson after the game. "You can’t expect 15- or 16-inning All-Star Games."

No, you can’t expect them, but you’d better be prepared for them when so much is riding on the outcome.

Major League Baseball wants its All-Star Game, clearly the best of its kind in all of sports, to mean something. Selig vividly remembers the rivalry that once existed between the American and National Leagues, when each was an entity unto itself, before the lines were blurred when MLB did away with league presidents, mixed its umpiring crews and began interleague play.

Again, nothing wrong with that concept. But get off the fence about it. If it’s not just an exhibition, then let the managers in on the news.

The managers — and it’s not just Terry Francona or Clint Hurdle who are guilty — have gotten it into their heads that they have a responsibility to get every player into the game. Thus, by the time a close game gets to a critical juncture, the starters have been gone for six innings or more.

Florida second baseman Dan Uggla, for instance, was on the field for nine innings Tuesday ... and made three errors. Somehow, I doubt that’s exactly what the paying customers came to see.

Selig has to give his managers better supervision. Lay down the law, in other words. Tell them to hold some players back. Advise first-time All-Stars that there’s a chance they won’t even get into the game.

Young, for instance, didn’t get into the game last year in his fourth All-Star appearance, and Detroit’s Jim Leyland, managing the AL, felt terrible about it.

"To his credit, he came up to me after the game and tried to apologize, but I wouldn’t let him," MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan quoted Young as saying after the 2007 All-Star Game. "As a competitor, you want to play and do everything you can to help your team win, but I know what it’s like for the manager.

"It’s a tough situation. I don’t consider it a big deal. I would have loved to have been in the game, but it’s just an All-Star Game."

Mike is both right and wrong. Players shouldn’t get their feelings hurt if they don’t get to play, but it’s more than just a game now. It’s a determining factor in what team becomes the next champion.

Back when it didn’t count for anything except pride, Joe DiMaggio played nine innings in nine of the 11 All-Star Games in which he played. You think the fans wanted to see DiMaggio or some backup from another team?

But it’s not the position players that matter so much. It’s the pitching.

Managers are so afraid of impacting the pennant races, they don’t want to overwork any pitcher, so they err on the side of caution. Only one pitcher, Colorado’s Aaron Cook, worked as many as three innings in the game, and that was only because it was already in extra innings by that time.

American League starter Cliff Lee worked two innings, and then Francona used six pitchers for one inning each. No wonder he was out of arms and considering putting outfielder J.D. Drew on the mound if the game went to the 16th.

Selig could expand the rosters again and add, say, another three pitchers to each team. They could be the JICs — the just-in-case pitchers, like the ones teams take on spring training trips in the event of extra-inning games — but really, that shouldn’t be necessary. It’s more about managing the rosters and then managing the game like it should be managed.

Managers once filled out their pitching staffs by taking almost exclusively the starters having the best seasons in both leagues. This year, Hurdle and Francona each took six starters and five relievers. Nothing wrong with that if those starters are prepared and willing to work three innings each, and the managers grasp that concept.

It’s either an exhibition or it’s not. It either means something, or it doesn’t. You can’t play it both ways and not expect to run into situations like the one that had Bud in a cold sweat Tuesday night.

My carpet can’t take another drenching like that.