Now Fox Is Left Hoping for a Magic Carpet Ride

Think about Major League Baseball’s All-Star game and you might think about Reds or Red Sox or Redbirds or, maybe, going further back into the decades, Red Rolfe, Red Ruffing, Red Schoendienst or, behind the mike once upon a time, Red Barber.

But red carpets?

Having convinced themselves that an annual gathering of top big-league talent is not enough of a lure for the viewing fan, Major League Baseball and Fox have combined to roll out the red carpet for the participants in Tuesday’s All-Star game in Detroit, giving the likes of Brian Roberts, David Eckstein, Justin Duchscherer and Brian Fuentes the pre-Oscars walk-up treatment.

For those wringing their hands over the All-Star snub dealt Derek Jeter and Matt Morris, consider the plight of Chris Rose, Carolyn Hughes and Josh Lewin. As if hosting FSN’s “Best Damn Sports Show Period” wasn’t penalty enough, Rose has been sentenced to preside over Fox’s hour-long “MLB All-Star Game Red Carpet Special” Tuesday, beginning at 4 p.m., with FSN correspondents Hughes and Lewin drawing shorter straws and being assigned to interview arriving All-Star players Joan Rivers-style.

During a promotional conference call this week, FSN executive producer George Greenberg called the red-carpet show “a wonderful way” to achieve “brand extension.” Fox Sports President Ed Goren described the show as “another example of baseball building the event.”

Remember when baseball built this event by printing the All-Star rosters in the newspaper and saying, “Hey, the All-Stars are playing on Tuesday” and that was enough to captivate a television audience?

But that was then and this is 2005, a.k.a. the Post-National Pastime Era, a.k.a. the Post-Tied-Midsummer-Classic-Of-’02 Era. Ratings for the All-Star game aren’t what they used to be, just 8.8 last year, but then ratings are down for sports virtually across the board. Faced with this unpleasant but undeniable reality, professional sports and television network executives have been left these choices:

a) Realize the climate has changed forever, the ‘70s and the three-network happy days are gone for good, expectations now must be sensibly scaled back, get over it and deal with it.

b) PANIC!!!

Say this about Major League Baseball and Fox: At least they are consistent. They’ve been panicking for years, or at least since Bud Selig ended the 2002 All-Star game while it was tied, which was deemed much more horrible and damaging to the national “credibility” of the sport than sluggers loading up on steroids and the continued existence of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Since 7-7 in ‘02, this is how Fox has hysterically promoted the All-Star game:

2003: “This Time It Counts!”

2004: “This Time Clemens and Piazza Are Fighting on the Same Side!”

2005: “This Time We Roll Out the Red Carpet!”

If this wasn’t enough of a clue that the All-Star game might be in trouble, the tone of the conference call was telling. There were questions about the lack of star power in this year’s game, the lack of Barry Bonds, the presence of Danys Baez and a possible appearance by Texas Ranger pitcher Kenny Rogers, who recently took media-bashing to a literal extreme.

For the record, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver said Rogers should not participate in the game.

Buck: “I can totally understand why he was selected. But it would seem to me that for a guy that hasn’t talked to the media all year long, to go to [Detroit], where he would be surrounded by a swarm of people following him around, God only knows what else could happen. I’m not going to be Dr. Phil and try to figure this all out from a distance, but I just think [Rogers] needs to take a timeout, collect things, serve the suspension and move on.”

McCarver: “I think [Rogers] should have been elected to the team and I don’t think he should pitch in the game. I think it would embarrass Kenny, it would embarrass Major League Baseball and I don’t think he will make the decision to show up next Tuesday night.”

This is a very important precedent for baseball: Should a player who mistreats the media be banned from playing in the All-Star game? I know a lot of sportswriters would be for it, but if this policy had been in place from the start we’d have never been able to pull a single All-Star game together.

We might have an All-Friendly-Utility-Player game. Or an All-Journeyman-Who-Is-Quick-With-A-One-Liner game. But not a real All-Star game, real baseball All-Stars often tending to be surly and crass when interacting with the media.

Baseball built this event around louts and boors and miscreants. Down through the decades, it even laid down the red carpet for them.

Available for viewing this weekend:

*

TODAY

* WNBA All-Star Game

(Channel 7, 1 p.m.)

This one tends to get lost in the all-star game shuffle since it features no one suspended for attacking a TV cameraman or accused of using steroids.

* Galaxy at MetroStars

(FSNW, 5 p.m.)

The Galaxy is auctioning off chances for 18 kids between the ages of 8 and 14 to walk out on the field alongside such Real Madrid stars as David Beckham and Ronaldo when Real plays the Galaxy at Home Depot Center on July 18. No truth to the rumor that Chivas USA, as a countermove, is planning to auction off chances for 11 kids between the ages of 8 and 14 to actually start a game for Chivas.

*

SUNDAY

* Dodgers at Houston Astros

(Channel 13, 11 a.m.)

Days after baseball was voted out of the Olympics, Hee-Seop Choi will represent South Korea in the annual All-Star game Home Run Derby. And they say the first half of the Dodgers’ season lacked true meaning.