All-Star Shambles

Dave Paisley

Well, for those among you who thought that fan voting is a crime perpetrated on the game of baseball, I have only two words for you - Joe Torre. Yes, if the fans stuffing the ballot boxes (legally, I might add) for their Seattle favorites wasn't showing the best judgment, Torre managed to one up them dramatically Wednesday. With 21 slots to fill on the All-Star roster and nine teams unrepresented by the fan voting, Torres had 12 discretionary slots to fill after making the mandatory team choices. Of those, six went to members of his beloved Yankee team (remember one of his seven Yankee picks was required by the team representation rule.)

Give All-Star voting back to the coaches? Pah! I say. Coaches exhibit more bias and blindness to real talent than most fans. I have absolutely no doubt that all of those fan votes for David Bell were at least half tongue in cheek.

To be honest, Torre has a good case for most of his picks. Jeter was a solid second in the fan voting for SS. Posada is clearly one of the better catchers in the AL, even though he finished well back in the fan voting. Bernie Williams is having a quietly great year and is tough to take issue with, too.

On the pitching front, Torre apparently couldn't choose his favorite starter, so he took both Clemens and Pettitte. He obviously couldn't forego having his closer around, either, so Rivera had to go. And then there's Mike Stanton, a setup man who has pitched a lot of innings and managed to avoid giving up runs despite only a slightly better than average WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched.)

So maybe Torre can make a case for his blatantly Yankee-centric view of the world. On the other hand, you could do the same for any reasonably successful team. Where do you draw the line? I'd guess at the four or five player line, unless the team was absolutely outstanding. But the Yankees are only the third or fourth best team in the league. They're 12 games behind Seattle and three behind Minnesota, while being in a virtual tie for third place with Boston and Cleveland. How many players do they get? Maybe even the six that Seattle has is a bit over the top, although solid cases can be made for all their representatives. Cleveland, however, gets a mere two reps - Gonzo (voted) and Alomar (solid second in voting, picked by Torre). Minnesota gets three - Guzman, Mays and Radke, all selected by Torre, while Boston gets stiffed with just Manny Ramirez voted in by the fans. So, not only does Torre overstock from his own pond, he snubs the rival Red Sox, despite the fact they have the best pitching in the league. Now we all know Pedro is injured and unavailable, but it's not as if he can single-handedly elevate the Red Sox to the best ERA in the league.

Over in the NL, Bobby Valentine, unable to convince himself that his team does anything but suck horribly right now, could only bring himself to name Rick Reed to the pitching staff, making that two Mets when you factor in Mike Piazza's runaway win in the catcher voting. Valentine spread the wealth around pretty well, although he is more constrained by the fact that there are 16 NL teams to represent with the same roster size of 30. Four teams have three representatives each - the Giants, Rockies, Diamondbacks and surprisingly, Houston.

Torre's picks kind of remind me of the SNL Chicago sports skits with Chris Farley and George Wendt. Joe's sitting there asking himself, "Who's da best team in da league?" The voice in his head answers, "Da Yankees!" And so it goes.

So remember this, folks. The next time anyone makes the argument that coaches know what they're doing and will make better, fairer picks than the fans for the All-Star teams, remember Joe Torre.

about the author

It looks like Dave Paisley missed being selectec for the All-Star team by only a slim margin. Next year remind him to hire the psychic Miss Cleo to implant thought waves into the AL manager's head. Send those reminders to drdjp@strikethree.com.