One thing for sure in last night's All-Star game, the ball was not juiced. You could question that in the Home Run Derby but not last night. There was lots of odd drama in the game but in the end it started too late and went on much too long. Six innings too long, to be exact. To me, the best part, as in all All-Star games, were the player introductions. While the reserves lined up along the field were shot with an odd lens that made them all look like Sharpei, the starters took their spots on the field with their Hall of Fame counterparts. That was very cool and very well done. I had feared some sappy baseball moment but it was all very cool. Take 3rd base: Brooks Robinson, Mike Schmidt, George Brett, and Wade Boggs (of the flowing hair) were joined by Chipper Jones and Alex Rodriguez, future Hall of Famers themselves. Pretty impressive.
The NL took a 2-0 lead, then Edinson Volquez of all pitchers gave up a 2-run homer to J.D. Drew, on several cities' list as a least favorite. The NL regained the lead, then Mets closer Billy Wagner, in to get one out, lit up the NY talk radio phone lines when he blew it in the 8th. That set up the tie and a marathon night for Phillies closer Brad Lidge. Lidge warmed up for the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th innings and when he finally got in was not lights out. He had already thrown by most estimates about 100 pitches warming up. Thanks, Billy, Clint, et al. If Lidge is fried the rest of the season, we will be bitter. I fell in and out of sleep from the 10th inning on and was totally astounded to wake and hear that Lidge had lost it in the 15th. How could he even be in the game?
Alex Rodriguez, on the other hand, had split as soon as he was taken out of the game. Sure, lots of other players left early but they weren't Yankees. Give Dan Uggla a big hug, willya? The poor guy had a horror of a night, with 3 K's and a GIDP at the plate and 3 errors in the field. The NY fans were taunting him at one point with chants of "hit it to Uggla." So much for Josh Hamilton's performance the night before. Last night he got chants of "junkie". But the worst was reserved for Jonathan Papelbon, who had had the temerity to say that he deserved to close the game for the AL. Yankee fans weren't having any of that. The Red Sox players got booed from the get-go but there was venom in the boos aimed at Papelbon. Earlier in the day his pregnant wife had been verbally threatened during the parade up 6th Avenue. When Papelbon finally made an appearance, in the 8th, the stadium rang with chants of 'overrated.' A real NY moment.
In the early goings it was a surprisingly sweet evening. Yankee Stadium is simply "the house that Ruth built" and in the end like no other baseball venue. The first time I went to Yankee Stadium I saw a young Jim Thome playing with the Indians. That was the game in which David Wells wore a Yankees cap that had belonged to Babe Ruth. (Once noticed, Wells was forced to replace it.) Also, I attended my only postgame press conference ever, at the stadium, when Irabu was with the Yanks. Best of all, I was there the night that Pedro Martinez, then a Red Sox, K'd 18 Yankees in what was a fab game for all but Yankee fans.
I don't know what commentary was more tedious: Buck and McCarver on TV or Campbell and Shulman on radio. At least I could mute the TV coverage.
