In the End, It Really Matters

Well, OK, maybe the American and National League All-Stars didn’t buy into the concept of “This Time It Counts” -- the drumbeat slogan that stared back at them again from a banner on the right-center field fence at U.S. Cellular Field.

Maybe, in fact, they were insulted by it, as some said, because it implied they hadn’t approached previous All-Star games with any intensity or desire, treating them only as another in the series of mid-summer exhibitions and nothing more.

And maybe, too, as they continued to insist after the American League had defeated the National, 7-6, on a two-run, pinch-hit homer by Hank Blalock off the usually invincible Eric Gagne in the eighth inning that could only be called dramatic, they weren’t playing any harder or didn’t invest any more emotion simply because it counted this time to the extent that home-field advantage in the World Series was at stake.

Maybe, of course, all of that is true

Maybe the change of format had nothing to do with the nature of a game that lacked for nothing.

Maybe it was all just the usual “pride and passion,” as AL and Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said, or as his set-up man and winning pitcher, Brendan Donnelly, put it, “we play to win no matter what’s at stake. If we didn’t take our job seriously, we wouldn’t be professional.”

Ho hum, in other words?

Well, if that was the case, answer me this:

Why were the players from both teams draped over their dugout railings for the entire game?

Why was Scioscia arguing an umpire’s call in the fifth inning and far out of the dugout giving Blalock a double high five after his game-winning homer?

Why was the usually stoic Garret Anderson, who would homer, double and single to win the most valuable player award only 24 hours after winning the home run contest, animatedly pumping his right arm after Blalock’s homer?

And why was Kansas City first baseman Mike Sweeney, injured and unable to play, crazily jumping up and down in the dugout before that eighth inning started?

“I told him we needed a rally monkey,” said Angel batting coach Mickey Hatcher, “and he was it.”

No more emotion than usual? Who’s kidding whom here?

A cynic almost had to accept Commissioner Bud Selig at his word.

“The idea was to reenergize the game [with the carrot of home-field advantage], and it worked,” Selig whispered, leaving the park to the roar of a crowd of 47,609 after Magglio Ordonez had caught Rafael Furcal’s potential tying homer with his back to the right-field fence for the last out.

A year earlier, of course, the response had been far different.

Selig was booed out of Miller Park when forced to call the All-Star game after 11 innings with the score tied because both teams were out of players.

Thus, the change in format, the expanded rosters, the mandate to the managers to play it to win.

“I don’t mind telling you I’ve been nervous the last few weeks,” Selig confided in the aftermath of the 74th renewal, “but if you saw the reaction of the American League team and felt the intensity of the crowd, I don’t think anyone could say that we didn’t achieve what we were after.”

Certainly, the reverberations may be loudest in October.

The last eight times that a World Series has gone to a Game 7, the home team has won. No visiting team has won a Game 7 since 1979. The National League would have had home-field advantage this year under the previous rotating system, but a player from the Texas Rangers, a team far out of playoff contention, stole it for the AL, qualifying Blalock for a “12 pack of something,” said Jason Giambi, if an AL team wins the Series in Game 7.

Blalock was batting for Angel third baseman Troy Glaus, who was hitless in three at-bats. There were two out, and he was getting the chance because Anderson had first dented Gagne’s impregnability with a one-out double and Vernon Wells had driven in a run with a two-out double, closing a 6-4 AL deficit to 6-5, bringing on Blalock to soon inspire Anderson’s unusual show of emotion.

The Angel left fielder said it was all about seeing the unexpected (“on paper you don’t expect that to happen against Eric Gagne”), but maybe, too, it was all about the emotion that seemed to inflate both teams.

For Anderson, who delivered the decisive hit in Game 7 of the Angels’ World Series victory over the San Francisco Giants last October, it could be construed to be all about his continuing emergence on the national stage.

It has been a slow road to the recognition he has deserved, but Anderson said he looks on it realistically.

“Maybe I just wasn’t ready for it before,” he said. “Maybe I just needed the experience to prepare me to perform on this kind of stage.”

No doubt about it now.

He swept the honors here and said, “if you’re going to play, you want to play well and you want to excel. The home run contest was an exhibition. Tonight, we got back to competing.”

Indeed, and could it be that there was a reason. Could it possibly be because this time it counted?