WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The All-Star Game is an oxymoronic and unmitigated mess.
It's oxymoronic, because it's an exhibition — albeit a glorious one — played for the extraordinarily high stakes of World Series home-field advantage.
It's unmitigated, because the potential for ridiculousness is absolute.
What sense does it make for Major League Baseball to continue to do what it's doing, and risk making a mockery of the All-Star Game itself while also unnecessarily influencing its championship series?
What sense does it make for Commissioner Bud Selig to have been huddling, according to reports, in a Yankee Stadium tunnel figuring out contingency plans in case either team ran out of pitchers as Tuesday night wafted into Wednesday morning?
There shouldn't be any need for contingency plans, because the All-Star Game ought not have anything to do with the World Series. It's a preposterous notion, has been since it was implemented after the tie game in 2002 and was demonstrated to be patently absurd when the AL squeezed out a 4-3 win in 15 innings this year.
However unsightly it was at several junctures, the '08 affair was compelling and dramatic and competitive. Everybody tried hard. That much is true.
But there was AL manager Terry Francona of Boston worrying about what he was going to do if the marathon went any longer. His last available pitcher was in the game, but the guy happened to be Scott Kazmir of Tampa Bay, which, in turn, happens to be one of the Red Sox's rivals in the tight AL East race. The Rays didn't much like having Kazmir, who had thrown more than 100 pitches Sunday, working at all, and Francona knew it. Which is how Boston outfielder J.D. Drew — the game's MVP — came to be a contingency.
There, too, was NL manager Clint Hurdle of Colorado telling New York Mets third baseman David Wright he would have been the next pitcher had one been required.
"We had what we had," Hurdle said.
What they had was a farce.
Imagine a Drew vs. Wright pitching pairing with World Series goodies up for grabs.
"I know nobody would have wanted to start marching position players out there to decide who has home-field advantage in the World Series," said NL reliever and losing pitcher Brad Lidge of Philadelphia.
Precisely.
What a travesty.
Selig can't have it both ways. He can't have the All-Star Game conducted as a substitute-filled showcase of stars with something as important as the home-field advantage in the World Series as the winner's prize. (The last eight World Series that have gone the full seven games, by the way, have been won by the team with the home-field edge.) If the spoils of victory are going to be so significant, the contest itself has to be treated as something meaningful in terms of strategy.
That means no removing the Jeters and A-Rods and Hamiltons or the Pujolses and Utleys and Joneses from the lineup in order for reserves to participate. It's nonsense. The All-Star Game shouldn't dissolve into an everybody-plays Little League routine with something as important as the World Series schedule on the line. There shouldn't be a back-up second baseman (Florida's Dan Uggla) making three errors or a lumbering reserve catcher (Tampa Bay's Dioner Navarro) getting thrown out at the plate representing what would have been the winning run.
That also means using pitchers judiciously, of course, but using them to best possible effect as well. The 23 pitchers used in the All-Star Game, for example, averaged fewer than 20 pitches apiece. Fifteen of them worked an inning or less, which is going to put any manager in trouble if the game goes appreciably beyond the standard nine innings.
The All-Star Game and the World Series don't, or shouldn't, mix. Never should the Mid-Summer Classic and the Fall Classic meet. In fact, a tie should be palatable in extreme circumstance.
It's not a difficult fix.
If the World Series home-field advantage is going to be the reward, make it the reward for a greater body of work. The winner of the regular season's interleague competition, if anything, should dictate the World Series schedule. (The Americans would own it by that measure, too)
If the All-Star Game turns into the kind gigglefest the same NFL, NBA and NHL contests are, well, so be it.
Better that than an event staged as a competition of consequence diluted by tactics and participation suggesting otherwise.
Greg Stoda writes for The Palm Beach Post. E-mail: gstoda AT pbpost.com.