No complaints with Haren, Peavy to start

Can't find much to argue with in the All-Star Game starters. Dan Haren has had an amazing run and been consistent all season, while Jake Peavy has been just as dominant. And as a National League fan, I'm hoping Haren's uncharacteristically "rough" outings in his last two starts carry over. Peavy may have lost his last two decisions, but he hasn't given up more than three runs since June 7.

Sadly, John Maine never got the call. Two pitchers backed out, but John Smoltz was replaced by Roy Oswalt and Brandon Webb took the spot of Brian Fuentes. Both were taken, I understand, because they were the next pitchers named on the player ballots who did not make the team. By that logic, I assume NL manager Tony La Russa chose the five pitchers for the Final Vote the same way, which means Maine didn't get the backing of the players to be among the top five pitchers left off the team. He'll just have to go out there and put up a 10-1 record in the second half -- that would be 20-5 -- and show everyone. It was also interesting how Oswalt was added to the team a few hours before the Final Vote ended, meaning it was clear that he was not going to win that competition, which Chris Young rightly did. But why make that announcement before the voting ends? Can't figure that one out.

La Russa admitted that he made choices based on the game's importance. Brad Hawpe gets a three-day break while Aaron Rowand is an All-Star because he plays center field. And Freddy Sanchez is a repeat representative because he can play three infield positions. Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather see the best players in the league at the All-Star Game, rather than the best players who fit the manager's style. Another reason the stupid tie-in to World Series home-field advantage needs to go.

An All-Star Game (or two) in Yankee Stadium's future?

Two weeks ago, the New York Post reported that MLB officials and the Yankees have discussed awarding the 2008 All-Star Game to Yankee Stadium. (Rumor is that one will count.) That's a great idea. Seriously, it's a fine way to cap off the historic site's long and storied history. It's something they should've done in 1991 or 1992 at Comiskey Park, where the first mid-summer exhibition was played.

But then, just a few days later, the New York Times cited a source who said MLB was also considering giving the Bronx the 2010 game at the new Yankee Stadium.

While it seems like an extension of the change in All-Star Game policy, I don't like that possibility. A few years ago, Bud Selig announced that the All-Star Game would no longer alternate between the National and American leagues each year because the Senior Circuit had so many new ballparks worth showcasing. Hence, the 2006 game will be played in Pittsburgh, to be followed by the 2007 game in San Francisco. With so many new NL parks opening up (by next year, that list will include St. Louis in addition to Arizona, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and San Diego), Selig said, they wouldn't be able to bring the game to some of the nicest and newest parks until 2018.

Not alternating leagues is fine, but I think they should at least focus on geographic regions, spreading the game out around the country each summer. From 2004 to 2007, it will have gone from Houston (South) to Detroit (Upper Midwest) to Pittsburgh (East) to San Francisco (West Coast) and then, potentially, to the East Coast in New York. The 2009 game should then go to San Diego, Arizona or St. Louis, but if it comes back to New York in 2010, it should be at the new Queens ballpark before the Bronx gets it again.

Furthermore, to me it just reeks of the rich getting richer. It's another example of how, even with the team in a three-team dogfight for the wild card entering play this weekend, Major League Baseball is comprised of the Yankees first and everybody else second.

Keep it simple, stupid

Today's games should count more than yesterday's, if you ask me. Oh, there are no major-league games today?

My point exactly.

Driving into work this morning, a caller and the host made a point on WFAN about the idiocy known as "This One Counts." (I won't drop this until Major League Baseball does.) No matter how much weight Bud Selig and his minions try to add to the exhibition, the players are never going to treat it like a true game, unless maybe you award the players on each team a cash bonus, paid on the spot, and other incentives -- say, $1,000 handed to them at first base after a single, or $10,000 in crisp hundreds collected while standing on home plate after a home run. Oh, and don't keep secrets like a new Corvette from the players. You'll have more guys trying to be MVPs.

The point made on the radio was that Jim Edmonds, one of the game's most aggressive players, didn't come close to Miguel Tejada in an attempt to break up a double play. Edmonds -- a guy who dives in the outfield at least once every two games, who only takes off a crisp, clean uniform on days when he never left the shade of the dugout -- didn't slide hard into second base. And Edmonds plays for the Cardinals, the NL team most likely to benefit from having home-field advantage in the World Series! No one's ever going to pull a Pete Rose again and run over the catcher in an All-Star Game, for fear of injury to himself and the stigma that would come with ending Jason Varitek's season. Ever.

Managers may run the game a little differently, instituting some signs, attempting steals, starting a hit-and-run, pitching around a player. (The day we see an intentional walk in an All-Star Game -- particularly if it's the only at bat a guy like Miguel Cabrera might get -- will be, on a smaller scale, as horrendous as the Tie of 2002.) But you're never going to get anything more than Torii Hunter leaping to rob Barry Bonds of a home run, because he was there in plenty of time and it wasn't as reckless as crashing into a wall or diving headfirst for a sinking liner in the gap.

There are those who argue that if you're going to have "This One Counts," then you have to have every team represented, but I think it's even more of a reason to abolish that representation rule. If the All-Star Game is for league supremacy and is meant to determine which side gets home-field advantage in the World Series, then each league should have its best players available to help it win. The NL deserved to have Cliff Floyd's relative youth and strong arm over Moises Alou's creaky knees. It deserved to have Marcus Giles available for four or five innings instead of Jeff Kent for one at bat. Keeping the fan voting is more important to me than home-field advantage, and how can you justify the fans' collective whim with making the game matter? Carlos Beltran and Edmonds didn't deserve to start over Miguel Cabrera and Andruw Jones, but the fans wanted to see them.

Clearly, the game doesn't count to guys like Gary Sheffield, who in the past only went to represent the Dodgers if they paid for his family to join him, or to Pedro Martinez. (As a Mets fan, I'm more happy that Pedro rested for the games that really count -- Sunday against the Braves -- than I would have been seeing him throw an inning against Miguel Tejada, Vladimir Guerrero and Mark Teixeira. Which he would've gotten through unscathed, which is more than I can say for John Smoltz.) Besides, I already saw him face Vlad in the lesser idiocy of interleague play.

I still love the All-Star Game. I like seeing all the different uniforms on the same field together. I like watching players from different teams chatting in the dugout. I love seeing Jimmy Rollins pretend to care enough to ask Luis Castillo where the Marlins start the second half of the season ("Are you at home?") only to have Castillo shake his head, smile, and point to the "Phillies" on Rollins' chest. "Oh, you're at our place?!" Rollins realized. But you're never going to get the players to play harder than they do now, and to use "This Time It Counts" as a failsafe to ensure there's never another tie is as ridiculous as the car salesman's suit Selig wore during his ESPN interview during the home run derby. Just tell the managers they have to save some pitchers in case the game is tied, and if one team runs out of hurlers while the score is still even, then that league loses the game. They won't run out then.

If David Stern told NBA players that the winning side of the league's midseason exhibition got home-court advantage in the finals, they still wouldn't play defense -- they'd just try to win 150-140. If the NHL ... oh, who cares? It's just that I don't see a difference in how the game is played. There's a miniscule difference in how it's managed, but nobody goes to a baseball game to see the managers' strategies played out. They want to see pitchers pitch and hitters hit.

That's what counts.

It counts for some ...

... but not for John Smoltz. You know the Braves aren't going to the Series. So he grooves one to Tejada.

Nice going, John.

I hate that this one counts

Of all the stupid things Bud Selig has brought to Major League Baseball (shiny toupees and used-car-dealer suits on national TV during the home run derby among them), determining which team gets home-field advantage for the league's championship by using the outcome of an exhibition game has got to be one of the dumbest.

There are a few other things that could use a tweaking or revamping. Like the every team must be represented rule. If the fans won't come out to support the Devil Rays or Pirates when they're at home, why should those watching the All-Star Game be forced to cheer for Danys Baez during the player introductions? Of course, they barely did that tonight. When Baez's name was announced, there was clapping. And nothing else. No elevated cheers -- not even boos. They don't care. The Devil Rays are the girlfriend the fans don't want to admit they dated, like a phase Bud went through in the mid-90s when he reasoned that just because there was a mauseleum available in St. Petersburg, it should have a baseball team playing there.

Also -- and I didn't see any violators this year -- players must only wear their team's home whites or road grays in the All-Star Games. No alternate jerseys. No blue Indians tops, no black on anyone except the t-shirts of the White Sox, Diamondbacks, Pirates, etc.

This is the only time, place, dimension I'd ever say this -- use the DH. In both leagues. There's absolutely no reason to adhere to the NL rules where pitchers bat in the All-Star Game. If there's a rule in spring training where teams can use the DH in an NL park if both teams agree and the commissioner's office approves it (which there is), why the heck isn't there one for this? What's the point of putting Roger Clemens' name in the No. 9 spot when there's no conceivable way he'd actually put on a helmet? This is something they should seriously look into before next year, when the game is in Pittsburgh and then San Francisco the following summer.

It's 8:37. Rumor is the game will be starting in the next 25 minutes. Which is another point: no game of any import -- All-Star or postseason -- should start later than 8:15. I'll give them that late. What's more important to the advertisers? Having the West Coasters at 5:45 or 6 p.m. and losing the East Coasters at 11, or having everyone tuned in for the duration?

I'm sure some more things will come to mind over the next four hours.