The US baseball All-Star Game -- d'oh!

May not really follow the sport myself, but heaven knows this whole situation bemuses me greatly.

I couldnt understand shit, i dont think taht my habit of reading about american sports helped (reads one line, jump another), can you explain waht happened?

Has baseball learned from test cricket?

US: embrace the draw ('tie', whatever). You know it makes sense.

Ned, it was complete bullshit. Coming from someone who played the game most of his life and follows the game religiously it was a joke. Granted you don't want any of these guys to go back to their teams hurt, but for christ sakes they are major league baseball players...not ballerina's. Their arms are not going to fall off. After making a big deal about re-naming the MVP award after Teddy ballgame, they don't even hand it out. Bullshit. Now to top it all off the STRIKE looms. This game is turning into a disgrace and I will be hard pressed to watch any games next year if they strike this summer. On a final note, Bud Selig should be removed from baseball...he's ruining the game.

WORD.

The "ending" to the All-Star Game encapsulates everything that's wrong with MLB: Bud Selig caving into pressure by Lou Pinella and Larry Bowa, the fear that extra innings might cause a steroids- induced fracture, yet another selling out of the fans of small-market teams.

Baseball is supposed to be the only game without a clock. The All-Star Game is one of the few fun events for the fans of teams that will never make it to the post-season or even contend. The fact that pitchers for the front-running teams might have to miss a start would be a desperately equalizing force if anything. It would have been more interesting to make them play and see which of the spoiled millionaires would throw the game first. Grrr, and this right after the Yankees buy Weaver and Mondesi. I love baseball but sheesh, how can they be surprised they're losing fans?.

(Chris -- tell us about your baseball playing!)

"Obviously, in your wildest dreams, you would not have conceived that this game would end in a tie" - Bud Selig.

There is so much wrong with this statement that I don't know where to begin.

Of all the options available, why this one? If the game "doesn't matter" (and that was the message that was sent), why not end it with a home-run contest between Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi? Or a strike- throwing contest between Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens? Fucking lawn darts. ANYTHING. Just a tiny bit of imagination would have gone so far here.

What an incredible fraud. The only sports organizing body more incompetent than FIFA is Major League Baseball. Anyone else get the sinking feeling that baseball is spectacularly doomed?

this Bud's for you, America

I am still seething with rage over the Tigers/Weaver debacle and paid no attention whatsoever to the All-Star game. It looks like it was a smart idea. MLB has pissed me off to no end for the last ten years.

John Darnielle to thread!

Um, to clarify: "spectacular" doom as opposed to the current situation, in which increasing apathy among younger folks over the next fifty years will force baseball into the margins. Like, I mean, a catastrophic failure: team bankruptcies, the revocation of the anti- trust exemption, collapse of collective bargaining and the voiding of contracts, and so forth, in the next couple years. I'm thinking the total breakdown scenario is far more likely than the slow fade scenario, and what fool is going to stand up for anyone involved in this racket, after last night's debacle?

...increasing apathy among younger folks...

Over ten years ago, there were eight teams of 14 players in my hometown's 13-15 year-old baseball division (when I played). This summer, that same league was unable to field two teams and had to merge with another league in the city.

I thought it was great - you get all the positive effects of a player boycott of the All-Star game (humiliating Bud Selig) with none of the negatives. If they didn't have that whole little-league "everybody plays" ethos going this wouldn't of happened. This was hardly the first All-Star game to go into extra innings. Anyhow - don't blame the whole large market-small market disparity (overrated) or steroids (even more overrated - raw strength is only good for so much in baseball; I'll take a guy with bizarrely good eyesight and reaction time over a weightlifter any day - it's Ted Williams vs. Pete Incavilgia), blame this increasingly absurd obsession with pitchcounts managers and baseball writers have.

God, I could go on and on about my distinguished baseball career. Im kidding obviously. I'll tell you this Felicity, I played for 20 years as a catcher/3rd baseman, and my knees and back are shot. But if someone was paying me 10 million a year they wouldn't bother me that much, i would have insisted I stay in and finish a game for the fans. This game isn't about the fans like it used to be in the early days, this game is about how much you can get paid. By the way it was Torre and Brenly, not Bowa and Pinella. But I like your style...

I know very little about this game, but even I can smell a rat.

Was this game fixed, d'you suppose?

hahaha CJ's found it. can you imagine asking a bookie to put you down for $100 on a TIE??

It's the Black Sox scandal all over again!

As for the Weaver trade, at least the Tigers got snookered by the Yankees; the Indians got taken by the...the...French! argh

As for the Weaver trade, at least the Tigers got snookered by the Yankees

Yeah! Uh....

I played for 20 years as a catcher/3rd baseman, and my knees and back are shot.

I was predominantly a pitcher, but I also roamed enough makeshift outfields (i.e. former railroad scrap yards and the sort of post- industrial wastelands you only see on episodes of The A-Team) and former DMZs that I am now burdened with the knees of a 60 year-old. And I would have made it to the majors... if they had ever needed 5'7" left-handed knuckleballers with pinpoint control. Granted, my fastball was only 80 MPH on a windy day. Oh well. Record retail seemed so much more glamorous than college ball at the time anyhow.

I love it! Can I be a diamond-encrusted ILE ba$eball wife?

What I meant was that Pinella's and Bowa's real-life teams were the ones who stood to be affected by continuing to pitch Garcia and Padilla, the pitchers of record in the 11th.

don't blame the whole large market-small market disparity (overrated)

If you are a Yankees, Red Sox, Mets or Rangers fan, we are not going to have a serious discussion about this comment. :)

Hoho, the mitts are off now!

mike illitch had to dump weaver so that the red wings could afford to sign curtis joseph. i bet the red wings payroll is more than double that of the tigers.

I hope no-one here is arguing that Detroit is a small market? Randy Smith was a completely incompetent GM; he, not economics, buried the Tigers. I think the A's will end up winning the Weaver deal anyway, Lilly's strikeout rate is ridiculous and they also got two really good prospects.

"Small market" is used here as a term of art meaning the owners are either poor or cheap, viz:
Yankees 2002 Opening Day Payroll $125,928,583 (1st overall)
Tigers 2002 opening day payroll $55,048,000 (20th overall).
The disparity between Detroit and New York would pay the payrolls of any of 17 MLB teams. That's not to say the GMs of such teams can't be stupid, too.

Twins and A's are what, the two lowest payrolls in the league? Good scouting and drafting is a better way to build a team than paying ridiculous amounts of money to the likes of Chan Ho Park and Mike Hampton. How much is Detroit paying Dean Palmer and Jose Lima?

"If you are a Yankees, Red Sox, Mets or Rangers fan, we are not going to have a serious discussion about this comment. :) " - I'm an A's fan.

Kris - Is your email address baseball inspired?

bnw - yes, j blount - me too, since 1982!

The "Dave Stewart for Hall of Fame, retroactive Cy Youngs" petition starts here!

Ok, then we can have a serious discussion about this. :)

The Expos and Devil Rays are the two rock-bottoms. The respective salaries of Lima and Palmer are $7,250,000 and $8,000,000. But that's besides the point.

It's great that Minnesota is making a run for their survival (albeit in a division that's low-budget compared to the East). I love Torii Hunter and Doug Mientkiewicz. I agree that the A's have excellent scouting (especially overseas) and that Billy Beane is as sharp as anyone.

However, Colorado and the Rangers not knowing how to spend money doesn't disprove the fact that salary can be a factor in the right hands, especially in the post-season. I don't think anyone would argue that salary alone is going to win pennants. The point is that teams that have good scouting, farm clubs and shrewd front offices in addition to financial resources (and I admit the Yankees have all of these) have an advantage. If you appreciate good scouting, management and coaching, then taking salary disparities out of the equation should make things more interesting, not less.

In a perverse way, I kind of appreciate the extreme cynicality of baseball, as in, it's not fair, but that's just life in America. That's why a championship by one of the relatively underfunded teams would be so much more meaningful than in other, more regulated sports.

(BTW, Kris, I have always thought your alias was way cool.)

Good scouting and drafting is a better way to build a team than paying ridiculous amounts of money to the likes of Chan Ho Park and Mike Hampton.

Kris, paying baseball players bloated salaries is the only way that folks like Selig can justify their existence. They would call it "the American Way"; the bigger the salary the players get, the more they can ask for: "See, I must be doing a great job, else why would you pay him so much?"

hey knocking the Red Sox is not allowed! Granted we play in a large market but we are no where near the Yankees in terms of sheer money buying power. Georgie loses, Georgie buys a championship. I fucking hate the Yankees. By the way I hit a homerun last night in my intramural game.

Are people finally realising that baseball is the most boring game ever invented?

wrong ally, golf.

I just pretend the tigers folded some time in the late 80s and no longer exist anymore. It's easier that way.

Of COURSE having oodles of money can help a team! It's not as if the Yankees have just sat on their laurels like cackling robber barons - they ARE one of the best run organizations in the Major Leagues. Begruding them their success because they happen to be in the largest media market in the USA is flat-out silly.

It's almost as if other, less fortunate teams feel the need to emulate their big-market brothers - spend, spend, spend, spend. As a result, multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts are doled out to lumps of flesh like Mike Benjamin, Mike Lansing, Jose Offerman, Derek Bell, Darren Dreifort, Carlos Perez, and so on, and so on. Blah blah veteran experience blah blah proven winner blah blah 5.00 ERA, .300 OBP, 67 RBIs blah blah. And now Bud's back on the soapbox, talking about MID-SEASON CONTRACTION!! I'm amazed that these executives, running these multi-million dollar businesses, can't tell the open seas from a bunch of jagged rocks. If I were dealing with millions and millions of dollars, I'd make damn sure that I knew where my money went, if screwing up meant I wouldn't be able to write out paychecks in 7 days!

Revenue sharing is only going to work if the small-market teams (based on market-size, NOT on payroll or penis-size or whatever MLB is using as a barometer) are rewarded for their success. Regardless, I've never heard of business competitors offering hand-outs to their less unfortunate brothers because of sheer stupidity, which is what all this hand-wringing and brow-beating comes down to - stupid teams unable to realize they can't outspend smart teams.

And PLEASE would someone just shove a sock in Bud Selig's rank little hole before he does even more damage to the public persona of baseball? Yes, the situation is bad, fine - do anyone think he's doing anyone a favor by drowning MLB in this gothic, doom-laden, misinformed, owner-friendly rhetoric?

The longer this fiasco continues, the more I realize that the best thing that could happen to MLB is realizing this eminent collapse - contract teams, cancel the rest of the season, strike to your heart's content. Until this shit hits rock bottom, nothing's going to get done to fix the problems at the heart of these smokescreens.

Dave that last metaphor just conjured up a really kind of gruesome image.

I say it again FUCK THE YANKEES - Bitter red sox fan.

(Branch Rickey had a house in the neighborhood I grew up in. Of course they were long gone by the time we moved in, but the house was still there. It was gigantic.)

Wednesday, July 10 Updated: July 11, 9:37 AM ET Report says Devil Rays are one of troubled teams ESPN.com news services

NEW YORK -- As baseball prepared to resume labor negotiations following an All-Star break dominated by talk of strike, steroids and stalemate, commissioner Bud Selig claimed a team may not be able to make payroll Monday.

Selig made the comment during an interview Wednesday in Milwaukee with the Houston Chronicle and other papers, saying during the session that a second team had so much debt that it might not finish the season.

The Chicago Tribune, citing an unnamed highly placed Major League Baseball source, reported Thursday that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays are one of two teams experiencing severe cash-flow problems so severe it may not be able to finish 2002 season.

According to the Tribune, it is the other team, which the source did not identify, that is trying to solve an immediate crisis. That team could bounce paychecks to players on Monday, according to the source.

Selig did not identify the teams he was referring to, and there was no way to corroborate his claims.

The Houston Chronicle reported in Thursday's editions that Selig might have arranged to keep the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays alive financially this past winter, according to its industry sources. The commissioner didn't name which teams are in financial trouble, but said one of them "will surprise you," according to the paper.

Reached at his home Wednesday night, Selig refused to discuss the subject.

"I'm done. Major league baseball's credit lines are at the maximum,'' Selig was quoted as saying in the Chronicle. "We've done everything we can to help people by arranging credit lines. Frankly, at this point in time, we don't have that luxury anymore.

"If a club can't make it, I have to let 'em go. I'm a traditionalist, and I hate all that. It pains me to do it. I just don't have any more alternatives.''

The talks are to resume Thursday.

Players and owners have not held a full negotiating session since June 27, and are far apart on all the key issues: increase revenue sharing among teams, the owners' proposal for a luxury tax to slow payroll growth, random testing for steroids and other drugs, extending the amateur draft world wide, and management's attempt to change salary arbitration rules and eligibility.

On Monday, the union's executive board met in a Chicago suburb. While the board did not set a strike date then, it asked players on individual teams to give it authority to set one. If there is no progress in negotiations, the executive board is expected to call for baseball's ninth work stoppage, setting a walkout date for August or September.

Players and owners also await the upcoming ruling from arbitrator Shyam Das, who heard the grievance filed by the union, which claims management's attempt to fold the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos violated the previous labor contract, which expired Nov. 7.

Das has told the sides he will attempt to have a decision by Monday. Contraction was put off by Selig until after the 2002 season following a string of legal losses by baseball in the Minnesota courts, which ruled the Twins had to honor their 2002 lease in the Metrodome.

Baseball is really becoming a tarnished game. I mean a team can't finish the season, thats a friggin joke. "Yeah we quit".

...thanks, Tracer...?

And, speaking as a Red Sox fan sick of all the rampant Yankee hating - like, GET OVER IT, YOU were the one that fucked up, YOU were the one that caused it to happen, and IT'S OVER, so SHUT UP and MOVE ON, and focus on the one thing that really matters, i.e. WINNING GAMES. The Red Sox Nation is filled w/ sad sacks of pinstripe-hating poo. (Present company excluded, of course.) (And YOU = The Nation. Know yr history! Remember the history of the Red Sox organeyezation, when the owner sold you-know-who, and then the Yankees GM, Ed Barrow - previously the Red Sox manager in 1918 (oooo) - proceeded to snag a bunch of the Sox's best players en route to establishing The Franchise That Will Not Lose. Remember!)

Yeah, don't mind me none.

Jim Thome is the answer. Dump Tony Clark.

The Devil Rays/Diamondbacks/whomever going out of business is bad how, exactly? Let it end up in bankruptcy court, then we'll see just how full of bullshit the owners are. The Selig regime needs to be toppled. Also, obviously more resources are an advantage, but why should the Yankees be penalized for being the Yankees, being in New York, being the team that Ruth built, and marketing themselves properly? I fucking hate the Yankees, but one thing pro-wrestling has always realized is that, marketed properly, the bad-guy = ratings. Instead, due to the owners' insistence on badmouthing their own product at every turn, the Yankees become a metaphor "for everything that's wrong with the game", and teams like the A's "anomalous". BTW, since 1980, in the NBA, exactly one "small market" team has won a championship (San Antonio). And as far as I'm concerned, the salary cap has ruined the NFL completely.

Keep yer hands off Thome, you bastards!!! argh

I'm praying the A's get Thome!

the A's are getting this guy: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/galleries/then_and_now/gamble/gamble01_lg_01.jpg

Oscar, m'man!

Haha, Daver, have you ever seen the Baseball Prospectus' HACKING MAASS anti-fantasy league where the object is to field the statistically worst possible fantasy team over the course of a season? The teams have funny names like "The Clubhouse Presences" and "The Off-Base Machines."

However, the current revenue-sharing scheme is a huge problem. How ridiculous is to justify giving [team X] hundreds of millions of dollars in purportedly [team X]'s "own" television revenues by arguing that [team X] gets better ratings? How many people would turn on the television to watch [team X] running around the field by it

. . . self?

By the way I hit a homerun last night in my intramural game.

Way to go!

― felicity, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)