The All-Star Game Shows Off the Sport’s Argumentative Side

Al Capone watched baseball at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. It was suspected when Geraldo Rivera searched his vault years later that Al’s baseball cards and bubble-gum wrappers would be revealed.

But, thankfully, they had been removed, like most of the art treasures of Europe during the war.

Considering what Rivera did to Capone, you would think they would dedicate Tuesday’s All-Star Game at Wrigley to Al, who never got to vote for a starting eight.

But it is business as usual there, and business as usual includes the customary debate attendant to this annual event.

A showcase of the sport, the All-Star Game stirs more disagreements than settling procedures on the West Bank.

It can’t be decided, for instance, whether it is better for fans, or baseball authorities, to pick the starting lineups.

And if the assignment would fall to those in baseball, would the responsibility be given the players, or the managers and coaches?

It even has been suggested that the fans, players, managers and coaches make their choices, with the starting lineups a consensus of their picks.

Since, under the current system, fans don’t select the pitchers, arguments rage over who should have that authority.

Right now, the managers of the two teams have it, but often they are charged with making decisions that are self-serving.

For instance, Oakland’s Dave Stewart, one of baseball’s prime pitchers, failed to be selected for the All-Star team by his leader, Tony LaRussa, managing the American Leaguers.

Eyebrows arch. And it is asked whether LaRussa is trying to arrange rest for Stewart, keeping him fresh for the boiling pennant race resuming shortly.

It never can be agreed how pitchers in an All-Star Game should be deployed. Should they work three innings, two innings, one inning, a third of an inning?

It is the longtime feeling of Jim Palmer, about to be admitted to the Hall of Fame, that nine stickout pitchers in each league work an inning apiece.

The All-Star Game, contends Palmer, is an exhibition. Let the fans see nine of their favorite guys, with reasonable flexibility for change if a pitcher can’t get the side out.

Should the managers concern themselves with getting as many of the fans’ heroes into the game, or with winning?

Either judgment will get them an argument.

It took Tom Lasorda three years to be forgiven by Houston fans for failing to use an Astro favorite at the time, Joe Niekro.

“Every time I went there,” recalls Tom, “and stuck my head out the dugout, they nailed me with paper airplanes, boos, catcalls and nasty remarks. One day, a Houston fan cussed me out in Italian.”

“Why Italian?” Tom was asked.

“He had his kids with him and didn’t want them to know what he was saying about me.”

Next, a difference of philosophy abounds over whether baseball All-Stars should be paid, as Pro Bowl players are paid in football.

Tommy John, who pitched for more than two decades, always felt that pay was appropriate if baseball was to make the claim that winning was uppermost in this spectacle.

“Money induces a serious frame of mind,” said Tommy, “whether you’re playing a ballgame for $10,000 or making a putt for $5.”

And, of course, contractual clauses pertaining to the All-Star Game have led to one of the biggest rumbles of all.

It is written into the contracts of many players that they will receive a bonus if selected to the All-Star team. These bonuses can range from $2,500 to $50,000.

This is the curse of managers who have to pick those 21 players added to the team each year after the fans vote their starting eights.

If the call between two players is close, and the manager selects one, costing the other 50 grand, the manager has on his hands a serious public relations problem with that performer left home.

A manager confided one day, “There can be no judgment more stupid on the part of a club than to give bonus money for an All-Star selection.”

So now comes the burning question of whether fans should pick the starting eights. You bring that issue here and you will be told the fan is too corrupt to be making such decisions.

Not that he would put the arm on the day’s receipts.

But he yields readily to the horsepower of a hero’s charm and bestows upon him favors that belong rightfully to a better performer with less personal appeal.

The fan, as a general rule, is also provincial. He is partial to the hometown player.

When he was able to stuff the ballot boxes--provisions have since been taken to make it harder--he made a farce of the game. Cincinnati fans one year stuffed boxes to such an extent that they placed eight hometown players on the All-Star team.

When, the next year, they landed six, a red-faced baseball hierarchy sent the fans to the showers, replacing them with voters who were pro.

It would be long afterward that fans would make their comeback as selectors--a mistake, if you want to accept the word of this beloved jurist.

We aren’t advocating that fans be deported. Just kept in their place if we as a society are to move forward.