Maybe somebody should have played "Hells Bells," the doom-drenched AC/DC anthem that has so often boomed through the San Diego Padres' home parks when the great Trevor Hoffman took the mound in the ninth inning to save a win.
Without his magic music, and faced with the might and mystique of the American League, Hoffman collapsed Tuesday night in the All-Star Game at PNC Park. Protecting a 2-1 lead in the ninth, the first two American Leaguers grounded out meekly to Hoffman, setting the stage for a tense victory that would ease some of the NL's indignation this season at being trounced ludicrously by the junior circuit.
Then, as quickly as you can say "single, double, triple," the American League ripped a heartbreaking, 3-2 victory away from the NL and, once again, handed home-field advantage in the World Series to the league that needs it least — the American.
Paul Konerko, Troy Glaus and Michael Young got the crisis-drenched two-out hits in what will immediately be enshrined as one of the All-Star Game's best come-from-behind escapes. The first was a grounder cleanly stroked through the left side. The second was a double on one bounce into the stands in the left field corner — perhaps a break for Hoffman since Jose Lopez, pinch-running for Konerko, could not score.
However, the hex, the whammy, the curse, the jinx that the American League now holds on the NL suddenly came into play. Down to his last strike, the right-handed hitting Young, a 6-foot-1, 200-pound Texas Rangers shortstop who has gotten far too little credit in a so-far stellar career, crushed a line drive 10 feet over the second baseman's head toward the right-center field gap. The crowd of 38,904 let out a collective grunt as if every person in the park had been punched in the solar plexus by Young. Or, perhaps, by the entire American League.
When Carlos Lee finally ended this game by popping out against Mariano Rivera with the tying run at second base, another all-star game had followed predictable form. Once one league gets the measure of the other, strange and even marvelous things happen to continue the trend. And not just for a few years, but for more than a decade at a time. Often far more. The NL has not won this Classic since 1996, managing only one tie in '02. But that is not the exception. That is the rule — the law — in all-star games.
Since 1933, one league or the other has always dominated. There has never been any period remotely resembling parity, only one era of embarrassing superiority supplanted by another.
First, the American League ran off a 12-4 skein, led by Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx, then Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. Next, the National League broke the color line first and with a more fully integrated league, benefited from more than a generation of deeper talent. The senior circuit thus owned this show for an eternity, almost ruining it with 33-8-1 dominance from '50 through '87. Finally, since '88, the AL has been back in control, 15-3-1.
However, until recently, the supposedly inferior league in each succeeding epoch could always claim that the results were a fluke, just a summer exhibition game with little meaning. In many cases, the results of the World Series contradicted the score in July with the New York Yankees frequently defending the honor of the AL in October.
And, of course, until the last decade, there was no interleague play with 252 head-to-head games to give an indisputable sampling of true results during the championship season. So, the fans of any team in either league could always crow that they were better or, failing that, simply sneer at the All-Star Game as an oddity.
Now, all that has changed profoundly. In the past two seasons, the AL has drubbed the NL by a 136-116 margin in '05 and an almost incomprehensible 154-98 this season. In addition, the AL has swept the last two World Series, both times after winning home field advantage by capturing the All-Star Game. In total, that AL record of 300-214 has humiliated the NL.
"We are tired of getting beat," said NL Manager Phil (Scrap Iron) Garner. . "Last year, we found out the hard way how important home field advantage is in the World Series," added the Houston manager.
As a result, a tense pitchers' duel on a gorgeous night in glorious PNC Park was as full of importance for the players as it may, at times, have been devoid of spectacular plays or high scoring for the benefit of fans. On the surface, this game was as simple as offsetting solo home runs in the second inning by Vlad Guerrero of the Angels and David Wright of the Mets followed by a scruffy run generated by Carlos Beltran who singled, took second on a throw from the outfield, then stole third base and came home on a wild pitch by Roy Halladay.
Yet that little wild pitch, on a big curveball in the dirt that AL catcher Ivan Rodriguez should have blocked, looked as if it might take a world of weight off the NL Or, rather, a World Series of weight. In the last 20 full seasons, the Series winner has had the home-field edge 17 times. Coincidence? Not. Now, the AL has that edge again. "Thanks," say the multitude of White Sox, Red Sox, Tigers and Yankees fans who think they are the front-runners to benefit.
Until the ninth, it seemed the NL would engineer a salvation by committee as six relievers each threw one scoreless frame -- by Roy Oswalt, Brandon Webb, Bronson Arroyo, Brian Fuentes, Derrick Turnbow and Tom Gordon. The strongest link in the chain -- by far -- was the one mortal-lock Hall of Famer in the NL pen: Hoffman with his 436 career saves.
Few all-star games have ever been such a mismatch on paper. So, perhaps, the losers can be forgiven.
The AL began this night with a sight seldom seen even in an all-star game — a lineup in which the first six hitters were not only near-certain Hall of Famers but are all known in the game simply by their first names or their nicknames: Ichiro, Derek, Big Papi, A-Rod, Vlad and Pudge. Few need the rest: Suzuki, Jeter, David Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez, Vladimir Guerrero and Ivan Rodriguez. All of them are the best kind of players for all-star games, veterans still in their prime, all 30 to 34 years old.
Against this armada of talent, the NL offered a starting lineup with Jason Bay, David Wright, Chase Utley and Paul Lo Duca. All fine players, but none yet a brand name, although Wright is working toward it quickly with the Mets.
Even Garner acknowledged the glamour mismatch. "There are some really, really big names missing [from the NL side] — Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Craig Biggio," he said.
By the end, the AL still had a wealth of big, big names left on its bench in the ninth. However, it was Young, a .297 career hitter, far from the largest name, who proved the difference.
"We had it set up as well as we possibly could," said Garner.
When even that isn't enough, then how much is necessary? And how much does it tell you about the depth of the American League's superiority.
