(07-18) 19:20 PDT -- In its quest for balance between importance and entertainment at the All-Star Game, baseball struck a few pleasant chords Tuesday night. Then came the element it cannot afford: panic.
This game was about 10 minutes from a third baseman (David Wright) pitching against an outfielder (J.D. Drew) with most of the real stars either benched or in limousines. Ten minutes from the National League placing a desperation call to Tim Lincecum, just in case he was feeling better. Nothing can prevent the bizarre or the unexpected in any baseball game, but exactly what's wrong with having a few more pitchers available?
Whether it's a larger roster or a so-called "taxi squad" of pitchers on hand for an emergency, the game needs to make sure it never runs out of arms. Starters who had a typical Sunday workload shouldn't even be considered. Relievers should only have to warm up once, not repeatedly, as did Brad Lidge in throwing nearly 100 pitches in the bullpen. The bottom line Tuesday night was that six pitchers - Lidge, Scott Kazmir, George Sherrill, Ryan Dempster, Justin Duchscherer and Brandon Webb - were put at risk in what still amounts to an exhibition game. Lincecum, if available, would have been the seventh. That's just wrong.
As for the game-deciding homefield advantage in the World Series, it does make the affair more interesting, but the concept is inherently flawed when managers feel the necessity of getting everyone into the game, and when certain players take the game less seriously than others. If the Red Sox were to gain homefield advantage because Wright took the mound and walked four straight guys in the 17th inning, wouldn't that be just a tad ridiculous?
Sadly, this is all about convenience. When it comes to hotel reservations and last-minute plane flights, it's difficult for Major League Baseball to assemble en masse at a World Series city. The stress load is cut in half when the dates are set by league (first two games in the NL city, etc.) some three months ahead of time. So don't hassle the commissioner, in other words. He's too busy to follow the sensible, best-record formats of other sports.
Just consider this scenario: The Cubs go crazy in the second half. They win 102 games and wind up in the World Series against the Tigers, who crawl back into the race and steal the Central with 84 wins. You're saying Detroit deserves the homefield advantage because Justin Morneau barely beat a throw to the plate from Corey Hart?
Just go away
Never forget the long-view perspective on Brett Favre: his playing for a team other than the Packers, and playing well, adding spice to the NFL season. That's where we'll be in November. In the meantime, he's making everyone ill, and that's not easy for a player so universally popular. Favre managed to make a sympathetic figure out of Aaron Rodgers (who should be freed from the Packers' prison, immediately, if Favre somehow comes back), and to hear them tell it around Green Bay, Favre is alienating both fans and teammates at a substantial rate ... Josh Hamilton may be trapped by the physical evidence of his personal freefall, but it's nice to hear him say he'd do anything to wipe those tattoos off his body. Almost always, the act reflects a really lame decision. "Check it out - here's how I felt nine years ago." ... It would be a shame to see the maple-bat crisis result in protective netting for fans enjoying the field-level perspective, but in dismissing the idea, Bud Selig made the mistake of saying, "The people most vulnerable are on the field and in the dugouts." Try running that past the woman at Dodger Stadium who had her jaw broken in two places, or the woman in Pittsburgh who needed surgery to insert six plates in her head ... Frank Thomas, Eric Chavez, Torii Hunter, Adam Dunn and Jason Bay are just a few of the players who have abandoned the exploding maple bats, and it only makes sense. Aside from the danger element, if you make perfectly good contact and the bat breaks in half, show some pride and try another brand ... When it comes to summertime illusions, you'd like to differentiate the Warriors' enthusiasm over Anthony Randolph from last year's Marco Belinelli hysteria. Randolph just might be the real thing. It's wise to remember, that the last two MVPs of the Las Vegas summer league were Nate Robinson and Randy Foye ... As the NFL's criminal element spins out of control, paranoid league officials say they'll crack down on silent, celebratory gestures that may reflect the hand signals of street gangs. Good grief, could they get any more paranoid? "Sorry, boss," reports a would-be Sherlock after investigating a suspicious party. "Turns out it's a Bugs Bunny-Elmer Fudd thing."
Hal DeJulio passed away this week, and the Bay Area lost one of its most beloved basketball figures. DeJulio lived for USF, having played on Pete Newell's NIT championship team of 1949, and he will forever be known for luring Bill Russell to the Hilltop. Always in search of prospects in the neighborhoods of his native Oakland, DeJulio first saw Russell in 1952 as a skinny, 6-foot-6 senior at McClymonds High, a kid who hadn't even made the team in his junior year. Scouts hadn't given him the slightest notice, "but I wanted him," DeJulio said years ago. "I could feel the magnetism of this kid. He was raw, couldn't shoot, but he was all over the court, tenacious, tough in the clutch, man, he was there." USF coach Phil Woolpert hadn't seen Russell, but he trusted DeJulio's advice and took a chance ... The story I'll remember just as vividly about DeJulio: During his collegiate days, he became fascinated with Don Lofgran, a kid on the Oakland playgrounds who wound up being a key member of the '49 team. Lofgran was a beer-drinking roughneck off the court - when DeJulio first told Newell about Lofgran, he was in jail - but he had a radical, one-handed jump shot that was pure innovation for its time. DeJulio knew the risk of his involvement, saying. "I guess I was crazy for talking to him about USF, because he was going to take my job and put me on the bench. But he was just that good." As was Hal DeJulio, as a man.
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