NL Ends AL Streak At 13
Written by Christopher Corazon, Wednesday July 14 2010
The National League defeated the American League 3-1. It ended 13 years where the AL did not lose. During that streak, the AL won 12, and tied once. The tie led to the rule that the winner of the All-Star game gets the home field advantage in the World Series and the slogan for the All-Star game, "This time, it counts".
It's the year of the pitcher, and the All-Star game certainly lived up to that billing. There were only two scoring plays. Robinson Cano hit a sacrifice fly to score Evan Longoria to give the AL a 1-0 lead in the fifth. Brian McCann hit a bases clearing double in the seventh to give the NL the 3-1 advantage that they would not give up. McCann's hit came with the bases loaded and earned him the MVP.
Another slogan for the game is "everyone plays". Because of that, David Ortiz was left in the game to run for himself and not replaced with a pinch runner in the ninth. Ortiz was thrown out when a Texas-leaguer dropped in front of Marlon Byrd. Ortiz was trapped between retreating if the ball was caught, or advancing on what became a base hit, and Byrd made a tremendous play to throw out Ortiz on a force at second .
"Everyone Plays" was the philosophy that led to the tie in 2002. If the managers had not used up all their pitchers in that game, they could have let the game play to it's real conclusion. "This time, it counts" is just completely absurd. The All-Star game should not determine anything of importance. It should just be some entertainment for a lazy summer evening. But if you use up all of your viable running alternatives as Joe Girardi did, and are left with Ortiz trying to keep an inning alive, it should not detrmine who gets home field in the World Series.
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