New Format, Same Old Rating

This time it treads water.

With and without the wildly over-hyped carrot of World Series home-field advantage hanging over the heads of the participants, baseball’s All-Star games of 2002 (“The Tie Is Falling! The Tie Is Falling!”) and 2003 (“The Intensity Is Back!”) finished with precisely the same overall TV numbers: a 9.5 rating with a 17 share.

Oh, there was a slight ratings bump over the game’s last half-hour, with viewers presumably tuning in to see whether National League Manager Dusty Baker might actually use Dontrelle Willis (never did) or run out of position players (almost did). According to Fox, there was a 12% increase -- from 8.1 in 2002 to 9.1 in 2003 -- during the game’s final half-hour.

But overall, the ratings from last year’s supposed debacle and this year’s supposed cliffhanger ended up, quite poetically, in a tie.

Of course, Fox was quick to put a positive spin on the numbers, trumpeting in a news release: “New Format Works to Increase Ratings Later in the Game.”

More to the point, the NL bullpen worked to increase ratings later in the game. Handed the makings of a 5-1 NL blowout, relievers Woody Williams, Billy Wagner and Eric Gagne helped pull the American League back, all the way back, up to and including Hank Blalock’s two-run, eighth-inning pinch home run that won it for the AL, 7-6.

Also, an earlier starting time and a shorter playing time worked to increase ratings later in the game. Tuesday’s game started shortly after 5:30 p.m. PDT and lasted 2 hours, 38 minutes. On the East Coast, that meant the game wrapping up just in time for the 11 o’clock news, with the all-important final half-hour rolling out around 10:30 p.m.

In 2002, the All-Stars labored much longer than that, into the 11th inning, when Commissioner Bud Selig ended the game, tied at 7-7, because both teams had run out of pitchers.

Did the new format “produce” a better game?

The Fox/MLB spin machine certainly wants you to believe it. Several analyses in the next day’s newspapers seemed to believe it. But again, compare and contrast.

In 2002, the year of the supposed debacle, the teams were deadlocked at 7-7 in the 11th inning. Hard to get a more competitive game than that.

Tuesday, if Rafael Furcal’s final fly carries a few feet more, we’re tied at 7-7 again, and who knows where the pitching staffs take us from there?

And if the NL bullpen had been truly as “filthy” as Fox’s Joe Buck and Tim McCarver advertised -- meaning the NL holds that lead -- where would those last half-hour ratings have finished? Chances are, we’d still be waiting for the Fox news release.

Not Buying It

Fox’s home-field advantage hype was so over the top, it met a predictable demise after the final out, with postgame interviews of the Angels’ Garret Anderson and Mike Scioscia taking comical turns.

Anderson, the game’s most valuable player, was asked by Jeanne Zelasko whether he felt “a different intensity out here? Did you feel it in the dugout and on the field -- the desire to win, maybe a little more so, because there was home-field advantage on the line?”

Anderson said he “couldn’t really tell because the players that are in that dugout and that clubhouse, they come to play every day, anyway. I expect that out of the players that I play against all the time.”

Clearly, this was not the response Fox was looking for, so Zelasko pressed further.

“All right,” she said, “but you’ve got to admit here, it got a little bit tense when it looked like you were going to lose it here.”

Anderson said, no doubt, you want to win, but attributed that to “just the competitiveness of being an athlete. We didn’t give up and Hank showed up well and got a home run off a very good pitcher.”

It really can be a simple game, if you let it.

A few moments later, Kevin Kennedy was assigned to a similar fishing expedition with Scioscia, the AL manager.

Kennedy: “This would have been a National League [home-field advantage] year. Should you go back to the World Series, aren’t you now pretty happy that you could be back at Anaheim [for the possible deciding games]?”

Scioscia: “You know, we’ve talked about it. You know how I feel. I feel it’s not so much getting home-field advantage as how you’re playing at the time. We went through two series without home-field advantage, losing the first two games on the road, and ended up getting to the World Series.”

Scioscia looked at Kennedy while he was speaking. If facial muscles could speak, Kennedy’s were screaming out, “Come on, Mike! Help me out here!”

A smart man, Scioscia smiled and added, very generously, “But when it’s all said and done ... yeah.”

Kennedy doubled over with an appreciative laugh.

“Nice job, Mike,” Kennedy said, patting Scioscia on the back. The Angel manager had just provided more badly needed relief than anyone in the NL bullpen.

Action for Zito

Two days after being declared “physically unable to pitch” in the All-Star game by the commissioner’s office, 2002 AL Cy Young Award winner Barry Zito of the Oakland A’s was pitching baseballs through plate-glass windows on David Letterman’s show.

Zito was clumsily bumped off the AL All-Star roster Monday when Selig grew desperate for a solution to a smoldering public-relations gaffe -- Roger Clemens not included on the AL roster. Working with A’s officials, Selig’s office concocted a plan: Zito, who pitched eight innings for the A’s on Sunday, would be scratched in order to make room for Clemens.

The A’s, who weren’t keen on the idea of Zito pitching to even one batter in Tuesday’s game, failed to notify Zito of the decision. Zito found out he’d been replaced when reporters asked him about it Monday.

There were probably better ways to handle the situation, as Letterman noted while sitting next to Zito Wednesday night.

“Let me tell you something,” Letterman said, wagging a finger at the camera. “This is a message to all major league managers: You want to [tick] somebody off, start with the bullpen catcher. Don’t [tick] off some 23-game-winning, Cy Young-winning left-hander here, by God. Don’t do that.”

Three words: Letterman for Commissioner.

Rush to Judgment

News release says: ESPN hires Rush Limbaugh as a football analyst for its “NFL Countdown” Sunday pregame show.

News release says: ESPN hires Deion Sanders to host “The New American Sportsman.”

Just asking: Who got the names on these news releases mixed up?

Last NFL season, Sanders was ESPN’s secret weapon, driving viewers of CBS’ pregame show over to ESPN. Now, ESPN returns the favor with its Limbaugh hire. Evidently, ESPN’s pollsters missed this one: Democrats, moderates and women like the NFL too.

On the other hand, ultra-conservative strategists talking about football on television is nothing new. But, given a choice, I’d rather listen to Chuck Knox.

Larry Stewart is on vacation.