The new Classic

Baseball hopes to revive All-Star Game with new format

CHICAGO -- As the garbage fell on Miller Park at the conclusion of the All-Star Game last July, along with all the boos, some burgeoning outrage and an occasional curse word or two, baseball commissioner Bud Selig made a vow that things would change.

No more would baseball's once proud Midsummer Classic go through something like the mess in Milwaukee again. No longer would fans have to settle for a … a stinking tie.

So, here we are. For good, for bad, for anywhere in-between, the new All-Star Game will be unveiled Tuesday night. It's not new and improved, necessarily. We still have to wait on that one.

But new it is. With a new way of choosing its stars, bigger rosters and, supposedly, an added urgency to the whole thing. This time, you know, the leagues are playing for the right to home-field advantage in the World Series.

Whether this wholesale shakeup results in happier fans and a bigger TV audience -- last year's All-Star Game set low marks on each of those -- well, we have to wait on that one, too.

"I never saw a problem with it being a tie," Boston shortstop Nomar Garciaparra told reporters Monday. "I saw one of the best games I've ever seen."

A good game through 11 innings, though, wasn't nearly enough for baseball officials or angry fans. A fantastic over-the-wall grab by American League center fielder Torii Hunter of the Minnesota Twins in the first inning, which robbed San Francisco slugger Barry Bonds of a home run, wasn't enough.

Some scintillating pitcher-hitter matchups -- Arizona's Curt Schilling challenging Texas' Alex Rodriguez, for instance -- didn't do it. A Bonds home run in his next at-bat, more stellar defensive plays (especially one by Montreal's Jose Vidro), a comeback by the American League … none of it was enough. Not when the game ended in the now infamous 7-7 tie.

Then, when the FOX television ratings rolled in and looked like something from a Detroit-Kansas City game, Selig figured something had to be done.

Thus, the changes.

"This," said St. Louis slugger Jim Edmonds, "has been too big of a deal over one tied baseball game."

The 2002 game in Milwaukee, in reality, was a fluke. Only one other All-Star Game in history -- this is the 74th game -- had ended in a tie, and that was in 1961. That one didn't register nearly as much outrage because, first, it was the second of two All-Star Games played that year. (From 1959-62, there were two All-Star Games each year.) Secondly, it started raining after the ninth inning.

But there were other problems with last year's game, besides the tie and the ratings, that made baseball want to shake things up.

Thirty years ago, the game was taken much more seriously. Starters often played much, if not all, of the game. The violent home plate collision between Pete Rose and Ray Fosse in the bottom of the 12th inning in the 1970 game came to exemplify the seriousness with which the stars played the game.

By 2002, though, starting players would often leave the game early, shower and bolt from the park before the game was over. Managers were under increasing pressure to use as many players as possible so fans could see all their favorites. Selig recalls the 1993 game in Baltimore, when AL manager Cito Gaston of the Toronto Blue Jays was booed roundly by the hometown crowd for not using Orioles pitcher Mike Mussina, who was warming up in the bullpen at the end of the game.

Since then, managers have tried to play everybody regardless of game situations. Last year, in fact, AL manager Joe Torre and NL manager Bob Brenly used all 60 players on their rosters.

Neither one of the managers counted on the score being tied after 11 innings and no one left on the bench or the bullpen. So, the game was called and the controversy erupted. Though it wasn't a controversy to all.

"I'm always trying to win, but at the same time I can also appreciate a great, well-fought game," said Garciaparra. "And if it's a tie … 'You were great. I was great. Hey, let's go home.' It doesn't mean I'm not as competitive."

Baseball is taking no chances this time around. An increase in the roster, from 30 players, to 32, has given each team 12 pitchers. And the managers -- this year it's Anaheim's Mike Scioscia for the AL and the Cubs' Dusty Baker for the NL -- are under more pressure to win than they are to get everyone in.

"I think it's going to be tough to do both," Scioscia said. "It's going to be tough to manage for matchups and get everyone in the game.

"So I would have to say right now, I would have to apologize to some guys in advance to say that there's a probability they won't play …"

What that means is starters on both sides -- both position players and pitchers -- will play a little longer. And it means managers will save a few pitchers, and probably a couple of bench players, for use only in case of emergency. As in extra-innings emergencies.

"I know, if nothing was done differently [to the rules for the game]," said Atlanta closer John Smoltz, "it would have been managed differently [anyway] because of last year."

Major League Baseball would have you believe that the game will be played differently, too, with home-field advantage in the World Series going to the winner.

But, again, that may be stretching it a bit.

"I can't see guys running over each other or killing each other," Edmonds said, "for an exhibition."

In the end, of course, that's what the All-Star Game still is. An exhibition for the fans. A reward for the players.

Hopefully, this year, it will turn out to be a winner for everybody.

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.

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