Managers Are Also Fanning Controversy

There is simply no way to eliminate controversy in the selection of the all-star teams. With fans allowed to vote for the starters and managers required to have at least one player from each team, it’s a no-win proposition that wouldn’t be improved much by another system.

Sure, rosters could be expanded from 30 to 35 players, but the managers have a tough enough time getting 30 players in a nine-inning game. Inevitably, with that many more players giving up a three-day break to sit on the bench instead of the beach, there’d be controversy of another kind.

The managers, coaches and players could select the teams again, but have Bobby Valentine and Joe Torre escaped controversy? And if left to the players alone, would those who receive incentive bonuses if selected refrain from voting to eliminate a conflict of interest or would the union agree to eliminate all all-star bonuses?

There is no way, of course.

The players have turned what is strictly a midsummer exhibition--what they like to call the fans’ game--into another money game.

Those who were selected this year and have all-star bonuses will receive a total of $1.875 million. Chan Ho Park, Cal Ripken Jr. and Alex Rodriguez will receive the largest bonuses--$100,000 each--and that should be particularly useful to Rodriguez, whose 2001 salary is only $21 million.

The New York Yankees, with a payroll second only to the Dodgers’, have the best thinking on this.

None of the seven Yankees Torre initially named to the American League team gets a bonus.

“We basically don’t give ‘star’ bonuses,” General Manager Brian Cashman said. “With what we pay our players, we feel we should have seven all-stars.”

The Yankees will actually have six. Jeff Nelson was named to replace injured Mariano Rivera on Saturday, giving the host Seattle Mariners seven players and ending their complaints about the Yankees having more. The spoils, of course, have always belonged to the victors, and Torre qualified to manage for the fourth time in the last five years and the third in succession because of his team’s World Series triumphs.

As center fielder Bernie Williams, one of the original seven Yankees, said, “You take care of Joe and do everything in your power to make him look good and he’ll do everything in his power to make you look good. There’s nothing better than to be an all-star.”

Valentine’s reaction was characteristically snide.

“I just couldn’t do that, in good conscience,” he said. “The way some guys use it, as a reward to your team, bringing guys to the All-Star game who got you to the World Series. I don’t look at it that way.”

Maybe not, but Valentine has his way, and there are many who believe he left Robb Nen, the NL saves leader, off the team because of differences they had while manager and player with the Texas Rangers. Others say he left Cliff Floyd off the team--despite Valentine’s denials and despite what was said during a Tuesday phone conversation between the two--because Floyd had called him stupid during an early season debate involving Valentine’s New York Mets and Floyd’s Florida Marlins.

Floyd insists Valentine told him on the phone he was on the team, which prompted Floyd to spend $16,000 on plane tickets for relatives and friends. Valentine said Floyd misunderstood and branded Floyd’s agent, Seth Levinson, a liar.

It’s hard to know who’s putting an honest face on this, but isn’t Valentine the manager who kept a fake mustache in his office and returned to the dugout in a disguise, trying to skirt an ejection?

The Angels began the weekend having outscored only the Tampa Bay Devil Rays among the 14 AL teams, and a significant reason is that they have used 17 players at designated hitter since Jose Canseco was released in March. Those 17 have hit only seven home runs, driven in 34 runs and batted .216.

The DH is critical in the AL, but with the exception of Chili Davis, the Angels have operated a halfway house for tired veterans since the 1982 departure of Don Baylor. Among them: Reggie Jackson, Ruppert Jones, Dave Parker, Hubie Brooks, Eddie Murray and Cecil Fielder. Disney may be blind to history, but it need only look across the chasm of Seattle’s division lead to see the importance of the DH as Edgar Martinez returns to the All-Star game with 67 RBIs, 13 home runs and a .303 average.