Baseballhead:
Milwaukee Talky

Michael Cox

Boa vinda a Baseballhead, where as the night owls we are we thoroughly enjoyed the World Cup, if only for the glee induced as announcers from several different countries mangled the Turkish name "Hasan Sas." I surmise they were relieved to find that none of the Polish national team were named "Mientkiewicz."

With just over a week to go until the 2002 All-Star Game, I've got to say my excitement level is going to need some work. Sure, it's hard to beat having the game in your own town, as it was for me last year, but I've been excited for a lot of Midsummer Classics before that. Why? I'm only guessing, but there are several reasons:

Yet another managerial appearance by Joe Torre, thereby assuring another roster packed with Yankees. Joe's bringing his entire infield to Milwaukee this year. Granted that three of them were voted in as starters, but Derek Jeter isn't having a year good enough to necessitate carrying five shortstops on the AL roster. Rewarding him for another postseason well done, perhaps? Then how do you explain Robin Ventura, who was a Met last year and is about 50 points of OPS behind Toronto's Eric Hinske in the 2002 depth chart?

The real problem is that if they let Joe do it, they have to let everyone else do it. Thus, we get Damian Miller coming along as an NL reserve while Paul LoDuca sits at home. At least Miller and Junior Spivey are having decent first halves (note to Spivey: beware the ghost of Bret Boone).

Elected starters that are all over the map. Okay, I'm with the program where the two Expos (Vlad Guerrero and Jose Vidro) and one Twin (Torii Hunter) are concerned -- and I congratulate that many fans on making a concerted effort to stick it to the Commish. It's probably the best-organized "fan protest" we'll see this year. (Unfortunately, our Bud seems to pride himself for not learning from these kinds of things.)

However, lost in this is that we're now expected to actually watch them play (or was the deal that we'd vote in Expos and Twins, then boycott? I might have missed that memo).

Other selections are just, well...odd. Scott Rolen, despite having an un-Rolen-like season to date, obliterates all comers for the NL's third-base spot. Perhaps it's Philly saying they're really, really sorry he's been treated like a WorldCom employee by team management? Some guys seemed to make the fans take notice of a great first half (Shea Hillenbrand) while others were clearly elected on name value alone (Manny Ramirez, who was on the DL for almost the duration of voting).

Unlike ESPN's designated nim- er, lightning rod Rob Dibble, I'm not going to call the fans insane for not selecting all the players who had a great first half and demand that MLB strip said fans of their right to vote. Why? Because unlike Dibble, I know that the reason for fan voting is to avoid simply picking all the players that had great first halves. Well, that and I wasn't punched in the head by my own manager one too many times.

The "30th Man." From the geniuses who gave you every other MLB marketing failure, comes this one: "Hey -- wouldn't it be great if the fans could vote for who gets to play in the All-Star Game?" One smart move: having ESPN sponsor the voting, which assures at least one ESPN.com column on why it's a killer idea.

The idea that the game will be used by Bud Selig as a platform for the kind of pomposity that gave us the long-winded "halftime break" last year. Last year Selig tried to make the All-Star Game his show, from the giant quote unfurled during pre-game festivities to the unprecedented play stoppage to allow him to present his Commissioner's Highly Esteemed Super Award (or whatever it was).

My fear is that this year we'll see Bud, The Patriot. I can only hope he doesn't stop the game in the middle and use his powers of boredom for the purpose of portraying Major League Baseball as The One True American Sport That Will Save Us From Evil, If Only We Can Keep Our Antitrust Exemption. Keep in mind that even the NFL saw fit to let a liberal Irish band handle the Super Bowl's grand patriotic gesture, so that it would actually be perceived as heartfelt.

Expect no such luck at the All-Star Game, where it's more likely that Selig will sing a Karaoke version of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless The USA" before awarding Commissioner's Mighty Classy Mega Awards to his mom, an apple pie, and the Olsen twins ("...unfortunately, the apple pie couldn't be here today...").

Miller Park. It looks like a barn on TV, and by all accounts, it looks like a barn in person. It was a purely conceptual idea ("ooo, loopy girder things on the roof!") executed badly, and apparently the good citizens of Milwaukee are already bored with it. And if you think they're staying away in droves already, just wait until next year, when season ticket holders are no longer entitled to All-Star Game seats.

The fact that Selig wholeheartedly approved a ballpark like that for his own team should show you that he has no ability to make qualitative judgments.

Still, I'll watch, and not just because I have to. When all is said and done, the only way you can go wrong with a building full of baseball's best players is to interrupt the game in the middle with some speeches.

Oops.

We Didn't Need That Ol' Regular Season Anyway: Interleague play has ended for another year, with a cacophony of sportswriters declaring it a success. If by "success," they mean "novelty," I guess they're right. Sure, it might've been kind of neat to see a new batch of teams come to town. But remember that when interleague play began it was declared a success as well, until fans had seen the other teams a few times and fans stopped being curious about the "new" opponents and realized that even though they had never seen the Tigers before, they're still a bad team.

All switching divisions does is buy the owners another couple of years of novelty. Of course, that's enough for owners, to whom an attendance bump is an attendance bump. Note, however, that Bud and Co. refused to drop the "natural rivalry" series, because if they did FOX and ESPN wouldn't have two weekends of meaningless-outside-of-NYC Yankee-Met games to foist on the entire nation.

Never mind that 80 percent of teams don't have a "natural rival" in the other league, or even that some "natural rivalries" appear to be more "natural" than others (why no Reds-Indians this year?). Disregard the ever-growing scheduling inequities between teams competing for not only the Wild Card, but their own divisions (for example, the A's "fought back into contention" in part because they were scheduled against the Brewers and Pirates, while the Mariners were not).

Soon, all series will be scheduled according to how much money they'll bring in. Expect the Yankees to announce a 2003 schedule played entirely on weekends after June 1, while the Royals will only play road games on dates when their opponents have scheduled bobblehead giveaways. Every square in the Giants' pocket schedule will say "LA." The Marlins and Devil Rays will have to resort to bribing their opponents in order to play any games at all.

Won't that be fun.

about the author

Michael Cox is creating a version of baseball that is played without use of hands. Explain that outfielder concussions would quickly decimate such a sport at mc@strikethree.com.