The gathering storm

All-Star gala dampened by labor, other problems

MILWAUKEE -- Ahhh, the Midsummer Classic. The national pastime's in-season showcase. The welcome break from the unflinching routine of the regular season. The All-Star Game.

Baseball, you know? Bats. Balls. Scratching and spitting. Remember?

Major League Baseball's All-Star Game will be played here Tuesday night, somewhere amidst the ugly headlines and the gnawing uncertainties that have stalked the game all season. What has been, in the past, a fan's game -- a celebration of baseball, voted on by the fans and played for the fans -- has become a sidebar, even for fans. Suddenly, this is not baseball. It's not even exhibition baseball.

This season, the All-Star Game break is more about revenue sharing and August strike dates, more about drug testing and competitive imbalance than it is about the best players in the game all on one field.

You wanna talk All-Star performances? You wanna talk pennant races? You wanna talk second half?

Don't even think about it.

"No baseball questions, dammit. There are no baseball questions," said Boston shortstop Nomar Garciaparra on Monday, laughing and slamming his fist on the table in mock fury when all the interrogation was interrupted for a question about -- get this -- baseball. "This is about labor and steroids."

It was a funny moment in what otherwise has become a glum few days. As the players gathered here Monday for Tuesday night's game, members of the players' union were meeting outside of Chicago to talk about setting a strike date. They didn't set one, but the groundwork was laid.

Then, Monday night at the annual Home Run Derby, a spectacle of power and strength that fans wolf down like a Hershey's bar, the specter of steroids use and its effect on the game hung like a stubborn cloud in the muggy Midwestern night.

This is no cloud, though. Steroids, strikes, the recent deaths of Ted Williams and Darryl Kile and Jack Buck, rumors about players' sexuality, the Yankees buying another pennant, the Brewers ... this is that monster red mass on the radar screen. This is that all-too familiar rumbling that won't go away.

This is time to put up the boards, grab the bottled water and take the kids to the basement.

Will it blow over? Can baseball sidestep this whopper? Who knows?

But it's headed this way. This All-Star Game is the official start of some nastiness about to come through. It's The Imperfect Storm.

"The worst thing is," Arizona's Luis Gonzalez, who hardly ever sees the worst in anything, said during a mass news conference of players Monday morning, "is we're not getting All-Star Game questions."

Said Atlanta's Tom Glavine, the National League player representative to the union: "It's unfortunate. But it's also a very newsworthy item out there."

The worst thing about this is everyone saw it coming. Years ago. This might as well have been printed in the Farmer's Almanac. Who didn't see this coming?

Still, it's uncomfortably close now as everyone looks to the second half of a season that, in a very real scenario, may be stopped by a strike. Depending upon whom you talk to, players are either cautiously optimistic about the possibility of averting a work stoppage or rigidly pessimistic.

Then there are those other problems: Steroids use may be rampant and could be cheapening some of the game's most cherished records. A survey in USA TODAY found that 79 percent of players favor testing for steroids. Working that out with the players' union won't be easy, though.

When you add the strike talk and steroid stuff to the tragedies that have stricken the sport in the first half, it makes for one strange Midsummer Classic.

Everyone will try to put all that aside Tuesday night, and for a few hours during the spectacle of having the best players in baseball all in one place, they will. Tuesday evening, at a beautiful new ballpark in Milwaukee in front of millions of fans on television, players will smile and goof off and showcase their talents. Williams, the great Boston slugger who died last weekend, will be honored. Fans will cheer.

It's the annual All-Star Game, the best all-star showcase in sports. For a night, or at least a few hours during the game, all will seem OK with baseball.

It's the calm before the storm.

John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

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