All-Star Game Ratings Increase

The All-Star game drew TV ratings 9% higher than last year, reversing a trend that has seen All-Star game viewership suffer big declines in the NFL, NBA and NHL.

Fox Sports’ telecast of the American League’s 4-1 victory over the National League at Seattle on Tuesday night produced an 11 rating and 19 share.

Last year’s All-Star game, which a host of marquee players sat out because of injuries, wound up with a 10.1 rating--the worst since the showcase contest first was shown in 1967.

Ratings plummeted this year for the NBA All-Star game (down 26%), the NHL All-Star game (down 35%) and the NFL Pro Bowl (down 45%).

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The Detroit Tigers can’t be held liable for injuries a 6-year-old girl suffered when a broken bat flew into the stands, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled in Lansing.

In 1998, a Wayne County jury ordered the Tigers to pay Alyssia Benejam a little more than $1 million for the 1994 accident.

Benejam was sitting close to the field on the third-base line at Tiger Stadium when a shard from a broken bat impaled her hand. Benejam said the injury has affected movement in her hands.

The Tigers appealed, and the Court of Appeals said the team shouldn’t be held liable for the accident.

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Pitcher Tim Crabtree of the Texas Rangers has a partial tear in his right rotator cuff and will sit out the rest of the season.

The team said Crabtree is scheduled to have surgery Friday.

He was placed on the 15-day disabled list July 1, retroactive to June 26. He went to California for a second opinion on Tuesday.

The right-hander was 0-5 this season with a 6.56 earned-run average.

The Rangers recalled pitcher Dan Kolb from Oklahoma of the Pacific Coast League, where he had been on rehabilitation assignment. Kolb spent 60 days on the disabled list with a strained muscle behind his right elbow.

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Boston Red Sox reliever Rich Garces made his second rehabilitation start with the team’s Class-A affiliate in Lowell, Mass.

Garces pitched the first inning for the Spinners against Auburn in a New York-Penn League game. He threw 19 pitches, 14 for strikes, gave up one hit, retired two batters on grounders and one on an infield pop-up.

Auburn won, 7-3, in 11 innings.

He is scheduled to come off the disabled list today and rejoin the Red Sox in New York for a three-game series against the Mets.

Garces, who was placed on the disabled list June 26 with a right hamstring injury, is 3-0 with a 3.03 ERA in 31 games this season. He has 28 strikeouts in 35 2/3 innings.

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A group led by a New York businessman who owns minor league baseball and hockey teams in Texas has emerged as a sixth bidder for the Boston Red Sox.

Miles Prentice has been cleared by major league baseball to review the team’s confidential financial records, The Boston Globe reported.

A source close to Prentice confirmed to The Associated Press that he has put together an ownership group and is a qualified bidder.

Red Sox spokeswoman Jodi Matthews refused comment.

Prentice, a corporate lawyer who grew up in Montpelier, Vt., has made unsuccessful bids for an ownership stake in three other major league teams: the Angels, the Dodgers, and, most recently, the Kansas City Royals.