National League snaps its losing streak in All-Star game

Someone grab the smelling salts.

For the first time since Bill Clinton was President, the National League finally won an All-Star game in front of a sellout 45,408 at Angel Stadium, giving the NL home-field advantage in the World Series for the first time since Major League Baseball began dangling that postseason carrot in 2003.

A three-run double by Atlanta Braves catcher Brian McCann in the seventh inning was all the NL needed for a 3-1 win in a game otherwise was dominated by pitching, ending the longest dry spell of either league since the game’s inception in 1933.

McCann was named the game’s most valuable player.

The NL victory also came on a day marked by the death of George Steinbrenner, the longtime owner of the world champion New York Yankees and whose manager, Joe Girardi, led the AL squad Tuesday. American League players had won seven consecutive Midsummer Classics until Tuesday and had not lost one since 1996.

The 2002 game ended in a 7-7 tie after 11 innings when the teams ran out of pitchers, prompting the still-controversial change to award home-field advantage for the World Series to “reenergize the game,” as Commission Bud Selig said at the time.

This year there was strong pitching aplenty, beginning with David Price of the Tampa Bay Rays and Ubaldo Jimenez of the Colorado Rockies.

The AL make one last attempt to tie the game in the ninth inning when Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz singled off Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton.

But after Ortiz teammate Adrian Beltre struck out and Ortiz was forced out at second base on a shallow fly to right field by John Buck of the Toronto Blue Jays, Broxton got Ian Kinsler of the Texas Rangers to fly out, end the game and record his first All-Star save.

The game was scoreless until another Dodgers reliever, Hong-Chih Kuo, helped the AL score its only run.

After Kuo walked the leadoff hitter, the Tampa Bay Rays’ Evan Longoria, the Minnesota Twins’ Joe Mauer hit a come-backer that Kuo threw wildly to first base, leaving both runners safe. The New York Yankees’ Robinson Cano then flied out to left field, enabling Longoria to tag and score.

For many in baseball, the game was tinged with sadness following Steinbrenner’s death, and the crowd paused for moment of silence in his honor before the game.

“It’s tough, because he’s more than just an owner to me,” Yankees captain Derek Jeter, the game’s starting shortstop, told reporters before he took the field. “He’s a friend of mine. He will be deeply missed.”

Even so, Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and the other Yankees All-Stars were loudly booed during the player introductions, even though Angel Stadium is an AL ballpark.

james.peltz@latimes.com