This article is written externally by Michael McNulty.It was 43 years ago this past Sunday that
Pete Rose barreled into catcher Ray Fosse at the 1970 All-Star Game at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Rose scored the winning run on the 12th inning play – but also separated and fractured the defenseless Fosse’s shoulder.
Fosse's shoulder didn't set correctly, and he was never the same.
Critics immediately lashed out at the "overzealous" Rose, saying the play was dirty and uncalled for. After all, the game was simply a mid-summer exhibition that didn't matter beyond pride. Rose defended himself by saying, “I did start to slide, but he left me no recourse because there was no place to slide -- and there's no sense in ever sliding into a bag if you can't get the bag."
Maybe true, but there’s an unwritten rule in sports: Never injure another player in an exhibition game. If the game doesn't matter, you don't play with the same typical edge. While the play may have been technically legal, and a fair baseball move, the game didn’t count so a careless Rose had “taken things too far.”
But what if that same type of play happened in the
2013 MLB All-Star Game? What kind of response would we see? Outrage? Suspensions? Interestingly enough, a player today wouldn’t face the same ferocious critics – because the game actually counts. Maybe not in the standings – but it does impact the World Series.
A player today could easily defend himself by saying: Hey, I was just trying to help my league in the World Series.
And he'd be right.
Starting in 2003, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig declared the league that wins the All-Star Game would give its World Series representative home-field advantage in the Fall Classic. Note: Up until that point, home-field advantage in the playoffs switched off between leagues each season and was not influenced by regular season record.
Of course, just typing the sentence about the All-Star Game influencing the World Series makes my head hurt. It’s about as non-sensical a rule in all of professional sports. (Just to clarify, if the National League wins Tuesday night’s game, the National League gets home-field in the World Series – and vice versa – regardless of the two competing teams’ records.)
One decade after Selig inserted this gimmick into the All-Star Game, the notion that a meaningless exhibition somehow impacts a sacred baseball institution like the World Series is still as phony and artificial as the day it was ill-conceived. Think about it, if you admit that the World Series is impacted by a gimmick – which it is – the World Series then becomes a “gimmick” in its own right. That's a crime.
But why is it a gimmick? Isn't it good for the All-Star Game to mean something?
Well, the problem is we all know the All-Star Game isn’t played (or managed) 100% all-out. This is a fact. Starting pitchers go and come – no matter how well they are throwing or how long they’ve been on the mound – so they can get some exposure among their peers. Non-pitchers, meanwhile, get a couple of at bats and then make way for other All-Stars off the bench.
If managers were truly trying to win the game, they'd go with Detroit's Justin Verlander (if he was throwing well) for 7 innings -- not two. They wouldn't take out a Derek Jeter (in his prime). You want him in the whole game, right?
Thus, Selig decided that a game in July – that isn’t played or managed correctly – should actually impact the most important games of the season in October (played by completely different players and teams).
Make sense to you? Of course not.
In a weird twist, Rose would have loved today’s All-Star Game even more than when he played. Why? Because it does matter.
Rose could have bowled into Fosse and nobody would have said a thing.
After all, Rose could say he was just trying to win the World Seires -- for somebody else.
