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| Wednesday, July 10 Plenty of possible solutions for All-Star tie ESPN.com |
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Home Run Derby. Get out the BP pitchers and give everyone currently in the lineup a swing. Best out of nine wins.
Limit the roster to 25 players, eliminate the rule that every team has to be represented, and require that the position starters have to play at least five innings. Then managers will manage it more like a game rather than an exhibition.
Why not have Torre and Brenley battle it out in a Sausage Race, winner take all?
The All-Star Game needs no solution. I got to see all the stars of the game. In fact, every fan in every city got to see their hometown favorite play. Awesome. The game was exciting and had some great moments.the fans at the game got to see 11 innings of baseball. No one was cheated out their money. There should be no controversy ... everyone got what they wanted ...who cares who won or lost.
The best solution was used Tuesday night. There was no other option. Fans should realize that and stop whining. And the media should stop making a mountain out of a mole hill here. One in 73 qualifies as rare, I would think. The goal of the All-Star game managers is to make sure that all of the players get into the game, which they did.
Solution to what? This is not a big deal, its just one of those unfortunate things that happens. Selig gets a lot of deserved criticism, but this does not fall into this category. This is an exhibition game, fans got to see 11 innings of action, and really -- who cares who wins the All-Star Game?
The manager from each team bring a pitcher or two from his team as an extra player(s). The players will be named an extra player before the game and can only be used in extra-inning situations. This will eliminate the need for an All-Star manager to worry about another team's pitcher.
Select 2 additional pitchers as alternates for extra innings only. Consideration of host team pitchers would be logical. Managers should be allowed to re-enter position players in extra innings as needed. This would prevent holding someone back for injuries. Designated hitter should always be used to prevent pitchers from having to hit. This would make scheduling the pitching easier for the manager.
Expand each roster by five players (3 pitchers, 1 outfielder, 1 infielder). These five All-Stars are voted on by the players of their respective leagues. Here's the catch -- they can only be used after the ninth inning. This way, they still earn the honor of being called an All-Star, they earn their incentive, the original 30 All-Stars still get the chance to play in front of the fans in nine innings, and we avoid another "Milwaukee Mishap."
When the game goes into extra innings, take the player who made the last out in the previous inning (or their replacement if there are any players left on the bench) and place them at second base to start the inning with no outs. This should help get some runs across sooner and hopefully, the managers will not run out of pitching this way.
Tom Glavine is right: we just can't risk someone getting hurt. The solution: Next year the "players" should just show for the photo op and bring highlight tape to be shown to the few suckers who still care to pay to see MLB stars.
Remember Pete Rose crashing into Ray Fosse and Ted Williams breaking his elbow crashing into the wall. It's good we don't have any wackos like that in baseball today.
You have to be kidding! What would I have done? How about manage the game like a real game. They did charge real ticket prices to the game didn't they? Oh, pardon me ... they were actually HIGHER than normal ticket prices. The solution is simply this. Either play the game like a real game or don't bother us with it. Either that or let the fans in for free or at a discount, since it is obviously not important to the players or managers.
The starting position players should play a minimum of six innings, with some substitutions after that, particularly to accomodate players from the home team or who are playing in their first or last All-Star game. The starting pitchers should go at least three innings (unless they get roughed up, but how often does that happen?), and the pitcher that follows the starter should also go at least three innings.
Have a Minor League All-Star pitcher designated for each league ready to pitch only if the game goes into extra innings, like the NFL does with the "Emergency QB" rule.
Never go to extra innings. At the end of nine innings with the game tied, go to home run derby rules. Give each manager 10 minutes to come up with a line up of 9 guys. Three outs a side. Away team up first. If tied at the end of 10 innings, batters 4, 5 and 6 from both sides come up in the 11th. As a baseball fan, I would love to see extra innings with these rules. There would be a lot of strategy with your nine-man lineup.
If the managers were concerned about the pitchers' health, why not let position players pitch until the game ended? Certainly some of the players would have loved to take a crack at pitching, and you know that the batters would love to take some hacks against 75 mph fastballs. The pitchers could move into left field or first base or some other position for an inning or two.
After the 11th inning, Bud Selig has a meeting with the managers. The managers then make a little show of shaking hands, the players come out of the dugouts and applaud the crowd, Bud gets up on a pedastal and lauds both teams for what was a pretty entertaining game, talks about how we just witnessed history in only the second All-Star game ever to end in a tie, then names one player from each team as co-Ted Williams MVP Award winners. Everyone goes home happy, thinking "What a story!"
Team with the most hits wins.
Take the pitchers with the highest ERAs from the AL and NL and let them throw from the top of the 10th on. It's got to be better than watching the batters hit the meatballs tossed during the Home Run Derby.
Every team must have a knucleballer on the roster. Said knuckleballer can only come into the game after all other pitchers have been used. I mean, I always thought Tim Wakefield should be an All-Star anyway.
Flip a coin, try Paper, scissors, Rock, anything would have been better than what happened.
With all of the stink surrounding the All-Star tie, everyone seems to have missed the real story. Who is the idiot that sang the National Anthem and sang it wrong?!?!? Has anyone else noticed the this Anastacia woman sang the song wrong?
What is the big deal? They had no pitchers or positional players to put in the game. The fans would have complained if their favorite player did not get in the game. You can't have it both ways.
Come on. It is a game for fun, to get all the best players together to showcase their talent not get someone hurt in a game that means nothing. It was a good fun game. No losers ... only winners.
Just make the All-Star break four days instead of three. If you play on Wednesday instead of Tuesday, you avoid the Barry Zito situations where a pitcher who deserves to be there isn't really able to pitch to more than one batter. Also, if the pitcher held back for extra innings should be a guy from a non-contending team who hasn't pitched since the previous Friday. That way, he'd be going on full rest, and nobody will get ticked off if he's asked to pitch four or five innings. Finally, use the DH every year and extend the extra-inning re-entry rule to all position players, not just catchers.
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