Why Baseball Needs All-Star Reserve Clause

Where in the world is Cecil, San Diego?

In ignoring the Sultan of Motown himself, Detroit Tiger designated monster-masher Cecil Fielder--possibly the most inappropriately surnamed baseball player since Johnny Bench--while anointing less heroic players as All-Stars for Tuesday’s starry, starry night at Jack Murphy Stadium, the American League’s manager, Tom Kelly, conveniently has supplied us with proof of what we have suspected all along.

Namely, that choosing All-Star substitutes should be taken out of the hands of these know-nothing “professionals” and placed into the hands of we expert amateurs who are so obviously better qualified to separate the Cecils from the chaff.

An All-Star team without Cecil Fielder is an Almost-All-Star team.

Possibly we could comprehend Kelly’s logic had he not thumbs-upped such a chorus line of second and third basemen (Carlos Baerga, Chuck Knoblauch, Edgar Martinez, Paul Molitor, Robin Ventura) without one solitary first baseman to understudy for leading man Mark McGwire. Who produced this star search--Ed McMahon?

Please, explain why .299-hitting shortstop Travis Fryman was deemed preferable to a teammate who bats home more runs than anybody else you can shake a stick at. (At whom you could shake a stick?) Couldn’t any of those above-mentioned infielders fill in at shortstop for Cal Ripken, who never wants to come out of a game anyway?

And, please, pretty please, somebody explain why the American League manager foresees the necessity of having 10 pitchers for a nine-inning game. San Diego being the home team, the National League might not even bat in the ninth inning.

And, please, pretty please with pine tar on it, somebody explain why, why, why the last-place Cleveland Indians are American League-expressing three individuals (Sandy Alomar, Charles Nagy and Baerga) to Jack Murphy’s house party, the same number as the first-place Toronto Blue Jays and Minnesota Twins?

On the day of the final selections, the Indians had won a whopping 35 games. Well, no wonder, what with one-third of their lineup being All-Stars! Picture a day when ever-improving Cleveland will field not three but six All-Stars in its lineup. Why, the Indians more than likely will win 36 games by the All-Star break then! Maybe even 37!

Puh-leeze.

At least Kelly cannot be accused of playing favorites. He won’t be playing Fielder, one of our favorites. He won’t play Dave Winfield, another of our favorites. Hey, he won’t even play Albert Belle, one of our greatest crowd-pleasers, who pleases the crowd every time he aims and fires a baseball at the spectators while pretending that they are milk bottles and he is paying three-for-a-quarter at a carnival.

In Kelly’s defense, he was quoted as saying that he consulted colleagues around the horn, most of whom “hardly mentioned” Fielder’s name. Sort of

a Cecil, Cecil who?

(Note to Kelly colleagues: Large fellow, big olde-English “D” on his chest, you can’t miss him.)

Defenders of the Motor City’s favorite Japanese import do not care to be reminded that Cecil’s batting average has yet to catch up to his weight, or that for Kelly to worship at the altar of Fielder would conceivably force him to sacrifice an All-Star virgin, Fryman, leaving the Tiger lovers growling about that .

This is why Detroit Manager Sparky Anderson called choosing the All-Star game’s reserves “the worst job in the world.”

Myself, I always thought the worst job in the world was being a sportswriter’s masseur.

Tom Kelly, a manager as praiseworthy as any in the game at present, cannot help it that Wade Boggs or Sandy Alomar with their humble numbers were elected to the starting lineup by us “experts” who poke holes in the ballots, any more than the National League’s manager can help it that Benito Santiago will be squatting behind home plate. Anyone suggesting that San Diego’s Santiago graciously yield to the more-deserving Darren Daulton of Philadelphia should also know that Benito allegedly will pocket a $100,000 contractual door-prize to be paid upon becoming an All-Star starter.

Furthermore, anyone suggesting before this season that Darren Daulton would deserve to be the National League’s All-Star catcher would have been suspected of spending his weekdays in a quiet rural setting attempting to convince doctors that he was, indeed, no, really, Napoleon Bonaparte.

Oh, well. You are never going to make everybody happy. Baseball is a game of grinches.

Maybe Cecil Fielder was left out because, with John Kruk also involved, San Diego would have needed a larger park. Sea World, maybe.