Bearing in mind their dominance over the past eleven years, it wasn’t much of a surprise that the American League came out on top in the All Star Game last night. The result was the only ordinary part of the game though.
The All Star game is often criticised on the basis of the players not really caring about the result. Well, neither side seemed to want to win last night’s contest, but that wasn’t a sign of ambivalence. Chances came and chances went. There were great plays (the Nate McLouth-Russell Martin double act being my favourite) and bad plays (hands up Dan Uggla). It was a game that had everything.
‘Mid-season classic’ isn’t always an accurate description of the All Star Game. You couldn’t argue with it this time around. It wasn’t a classic in the terms of the quality of baseball, but the drama more than made up for that. Much will be written about the efforts of the players, but the real battlers were the British fans who managed to last the whole fifteen innings. Not being ‘hardcore’, I taped the game and therefore had to catch the ending via MLB.com. It’s great that Five can now use the Five U.S. channel when a game overruns; so at least those people who were watching live could catch the game in its entirety, from one in the morning to twenty to seven.Â
Five’s coverage was excellent as usual, despite Dave Lengel’s moustache doing its best to bring the show down (good to see you again though, Dave!). It was a shame to hear how obstructive and unhelpful the Yankee Stadium staff were to the team (and other media outlets), but at least it means Jonny can feel less guilty about upsetting Derek Jeter with his ‘evil empire’ question.Â
Speaking of the captain, the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry showed no signs of being put on the back burner in the stands (maybe they were shouting ‘Drew’ rather than ‘boo’? Okay, maybe not), despite Jeter and Pedroia doing their best to foster good relations between the two teams in the dugouts. All we needed was Jason Varitek and A-Rod to share a joke to put the icing on the cake. And to put ice on the car windscreens in hell.
Regardless of the traditional team rivalries, the AL and the NL put on a show and that’s the whole point of the All Star Game. Yes, inter-league play reduces the novelty a bit, but it’s still a special occasion and that was guaranteed even before the first pitch was thrown. If there’s one thing that MLB normally does well, it’s honouring the great players from the history of the sport. The pre-game ceremony was done brilliantly and all in all you have to say the 2008 All Star festivities were a success.
St Louis has a lot to live up to next year, but I’m sure such a great baseball city will be more than willing to rise to the challenge.Â
2 comments
I watched the entire game from Start too finish. All four hours and fifty minuetes of it. I was surprised that George made his appearence though. He looked less in charge than usual. It was great to see the Hall of Famers, but especially to see Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, Reggie Jackson, and Goose Gossage throw out the first pitch. Btw way it was great to see both Willie Randolph and Lou Pinnella back at Yankee Stadium after long absenses. Btw, even though it may have seemed like they were booing Pinnella they actually weren’t. What they were shouting was “Lou, Lou”, as they did when he played for the team. Unfortuanately it sounds so similar to “boo”.
Speaking of Bronx Cheers, the biggest were saved for Jonathan Papelbom who last week implied that he should be closing the game instead of Mariono Rivera. Unfortunately for Papelbom, Mo deserved that assignment on merit. He’s enjoying a better year than Papelbom. He shouldn’t have been shocked that his attempts at back tracking didn’t work.
Yes, I saw the ‘Papelbum’ headline on one of the New York papers! Didn’t Francona excuse the comments by basically implying that Papelbon isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer?!
It was great to see the reaction Mo received when entering the game though, one of my favourites moments of the night.