Published: July 16, 2008 04:19 pm         

Thoughta about the All-Star game and festivities

* I think I have a new baseball hero: Clay Counsil, the 71-year-old Legion coach who threw to Josh Hamilton at the Home Run Derby. If I can throw a ball 60 feet six inches even once at age 71, I'll be shocked. Counsil exceeded whatever pitch count he was on.



*Considering how many hearts Hamilton must have broken during his four years in his self-inducted druggie haze, bringing Counsil to the event was a wonderful gesture, an apology of sorts to all the people who helped him and had thought their efforts had been wasted.



Check out this box score from the 1967 All-Star game, the first time the All-Star game went 15 innings.



Note that the American League starters almost all went the distance. Only the second baseman and shortstop were changed. Bill Freehan caught all 15 innings. Catfish Hunter pitched the last five innings. (And Tony Oliva played center field!)



When the game ended, the National League still had a pitcher in reserve (Claude Osteen) and the AL had three left (Steve Hargan, Joel Horlen and Jim Lonborg).



Compare that to this year, when both managers had completely exhausted their benches and pitching staffs by the end. J.D. Drew was supposedly preparing to pitch for the AL had the game continued.



*If that had happened, Terry Francona had nobody to blame but himself. Clint Hurdle had a pitcher (Tim Lincecum) go to the hospital Tuesday, so he was down a pitcher before the game started. But Francona



a) chose a staff with six closers, which means he had a bunch of guys who aren't prepared to pitch more than an inning; and



b) opted to burn most of his starters (Roy Halladay, Joe Saunders, Justin Duescherer, Ervin Santana) one inning at a time.



Then he compounded that by using one of the closers (Francisco Rodriguez) for a fraction of the ninth inning so that he could bring Mariano Rivera in to finish the ninth in Yankee Stadium. That was a kindly sentimental gesture that wasted a pitcher.



Francona got through it by getting more than two innings out of a closer (George Sherrill) and by squeezing an inning out of Scott Kazmir, who had thrown 110 pitches on Sunday.



One problem facing these managers, of course, is that players don't like to go to the All-Star game and not play. They have pressure to get everybody in. If Hank Bauer and Walt Alston, the managers in the 1967 game, felt that pressure, it sure doesn't show in the box score.





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