July 17, 2003: MLB All-Star Mockery Revisited
A Classic Move Raises All-Star Stakes
by Thomas Boswell, Washington Post
Baseball can thank Mike Scioscia, manager of the World Series champion California Angels, for transforming the very nature of the All-Star Game.
Seldom does a sport stumble into such a bonanza. On Tuesday night, baseball desperately needed a good game to justify a radical format switch, with the winner getting home-field advantage in the World Series. Instead, the sport saw the biggest come-from-behind win since '55 and perhaps the best game since Ted Williams's walk-off home run in '41. The main reason was Scioscia.
The AL manager got it. Dusty Baker, the NL manager, didn't.
"This Time It Counts" wasn't just another slogan. When you can grab home-field advantage for the World Series, the stakes are very high. All night Scioscia managed as if he were in a polite version of a playoff game. He broke all the unwritten rules of All-Star Game decorum, probably changing the game's future in one night. As a result, the AL, trailing 5-1 in the fifth, won 7-6 with late-inning home-run heroics against one of the best bullpens ever assembled. Meanwhile, Baker managed much as others have for the last 15 years. And lost.
In recent times, only the most famous stars get a third all-star at-bat. Hit the showers. Let the subs in. Only Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols, the two best NL players, got that respect from Baker. Scioscia slapped that tradition in the face. Six AL starters got a third at-bat. Garret Anderson, exactly the kind of semi-great player who is normally pulled after two at-bats, got four trips -- and ended up the game's MVP. In his third at-bat, he hit a two-run homer. In his last at-bat, his double ignited a three-run game-winning rally off Eric Gagne. (Forget the French pronunciation. Now, it's "Gag-Knee.")
At the seventh-inning stretch with the AL behind 6-3, preparing to face Billy Wagner, Gagne and John Smoltz, Scioscia still had his power-laden lineup, and bench, set up exactly as he wanted. If 10 AL all-stars got only one at-bat or none at all, so be it. Let 'em cope. Jason Giambi and Hank Blalock, whose two-run homer won the game, each hit homers in their only at-bats.
Baker understood the new all-star concept, but couldn't bring himself to implement it. On Monday, he said how he hated to have players come thousands of miles for a token appearance. In contrast, Scioscia talked to each AL player, telling him how important the game was and letting reserves know their exact late-inning role, as well as the possibility they wouldn't play.
Perhaps Scioscia welcomed the chance to grab home-field advantage because nine months ago that edge helped give him his greatest baseball moment. Maybe Baker couldn't bear to remember how painful it was to watch his team fall apart in Games 6 and 7 of the Series last year in Anaheim. By the fifth inning of the All-Star Game, with a 5-1 lead, Baker had yanked seven of his nine starting players. Soon, his entire "bench" was someone named Geoff Jenkins. Dusty had counted his chickens too soon. Again.
How could Baker forget the seventh inning of Game 6 last October, when Scioscia's Angels were as dead as a team could be. They trailed the Giants, 5-0. Baker, then the San Francisco manager, replaced starter Russ Ortiz. As Ortiz walked off the mound, Baker called him back and handed him the baseball for his trophy case. The Angels noticed the accidental insult and, annoyed, awoke.
The next batter, Scott Spiezio, hit a three-run homer. As his ball left the park, The Crowd Arrived. From that moment, the Angels were borne forward to World Series victory by home-field advantage as much as any team can be. The Angels outscored the Giants 10-1 over five innings starting with Spiezio's blast. Does the same sequence of events happen if the games are in San Francisco?
A home-crowd adrenaline rush also helped save the Diamondbacks the year before. Arizona returned home after two of the most incredible losses in history -- the two-outs in the ninth, game-saving homers in Yankee Stadium by Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius. Back home, the crowd loved up the D'backs like they had done nothing wrong at all. After three innings of Game 6, Arizona led 12-0. Suddenly, all the momentum of the Yankee miracles was neutralized.
The next night, Arizona scored twice in the ninth to beat Mariano Rivera, 3-2, to end the best Series ever played. Do the D'backs beat Rivera if that game is in Yankee Stadium? You can say, "Nobody knows." But I know. They don't.
Before this All-Star Game, players were cautious about admitting how much this game meant. In part, their reluctance was face saving. These three days have been a mid-season lark since Babe Ruth's time. All other sports have followed the same fun-first model. Think about it: How do you get players to work for free -- which is what an all-star game is -- if it isn't played entirely on their terms? Bring the family. Kick back. Get worshipped. No pressure.
Now, baseball, after last year's game-called-on-account-of-indifference abomination, has turned the tables. Say what you will about baseball executives' culpability in that tie, the basic problem was that the players didn't care. No Pete Rose stood up and said, "Get your butt back out there and pitch."
So baseball just changed the format and let human nature take its course. How are six Braves on the NL team going to say, "It doesn't matter," especially after all the postseason heartbreak they've had? How are five Yankees and five Mariners, with the two best records in the AL, going to say, "Aw, just chill out." For example, on Tuesday, Roger Clemens drove 90 minutes at nearly 100 mph to get to a remote Texas airport so he and his family could hop on a jet to beat an approaching hurricane and get to Chicago.
There are still no deliberate up-and-in fastballs or hard take-out slides in the all-star game. But, after Tuesday night, there's everything else.
"It's hard to say who's going to be in the World Series," said the Cards' Woody Williams, who gave up Anderson's two-run homer, "but if we do get there, it's a big disadvantage."
Afterward, Mariners players pointed out that their slugger, Edgar Martinez, would get an extra game at DH in a Series with home-field advantage. Giambi didn't mince words, saying the intensity level was higher than in the past "because of what's at stake."
We can anticipate that the players' union may not be entirely cheerful about the sudden importance of an unpaid "exhibition" game. But, for once, baseball has 'em over a barrel. Great players are born competitors. The internal pressure to win the all-star game will only increase, especially since about 60 percent of all all-star games are decided by two runs or less and about 60 percent of all World Series end in the park of the team with home-field advantage.
The math is simple. More than a third of the time, the World Series will probably be decided in the home park of the league that won a close all-star game. No other sport now has an "exhibition" with that kind of cachet. This year, TV ratings matched last year's record low. But that's because, like Baker, few people "got it." They'll understand in the future. Mid-summer "classic" may eventually be an apt moniker, not hype.
With all due respect to Blalock, the person most responsible is Scioscia. He took the new format seriously. He got it. The result -- a fabulous game with unexpected intensity -- will force everybody else in baseball to get it, too.