Red Schoendienst remains the last Cardinal manager to win an All-Star game, beating Mayo Smith's AL squad, 9-3 on July 23rd, 1969 at RFK stadium, home of the brand new expansion Washington Senators.
Whitey Herzog was 0 for 3 in a Cardinal uniform, and now Tony LaRussa is 0-2. Of course, in the 80's Herzog was almost the lone NL manager to lose in the MidSummer Classic, joined only by Tommy Lasorda in 1989. Tony LaRussa, on the other hand, is just one of 9 NL managers in the past 11 years to lose this game: Bobby Cox, Jim Leyland, Bruce Bochy, Bobby Valentine, Bob Brenly, Felipe Alou, Jack McKeon, and Phil Garner all failed to win, with only Bob Brenly being spared the loss in that fateful 2002 game that has now given us "This time it counts!"
Really?
1. The only way it counts for anything is if there is a WS game 7. Just for the record, 2002 was the last time the WS went the full 7 games, and "This time it counts" didn't start until 2003. The Marlins and the Cardinals won without it, and in fact, the Marlins had the same number of home games as the Yankees, and the Cardinals had 3 home games to the Tigers' 2. The White Sox and the Red Sox had it and didn't need it; they both swept in 4. So, in practice, the All-Star game result has meant zilch so far.
2. Joe Buck, among others, keeps babbling about how it has changed the way the game is managed. "What we've noticed in talking to managers who have a reason to try and win and gain home-field advantage in the World Series -- whether it's [AL manager Jim] Leyland this year, and I think it's farfetched with [NL manager Tony] La Russa -- for the guys doing the game, it makes it more fun and interesting because there is strategy involved. Because of roster moves that have more to do with strategy. We like it. It's something that has added to our conversation during the course of the game. It's been debated for years now. It enhances it." Tim McCarver chimes in with "It affects the managers more than the players. It's farfetched to think if Carl Crawford is batting with two out and a man on second base in the ninth, he's saying, 'Let's win this for David Ortiz, so the Red Sox can win home-field advantage.' That's not the case. But for the manager, that is the case. I think Tony and Jim will be playing to win, and prior to this format, I don't think they played to win. First and foremost, thoughts were on playing to get guys into the game."
Hogwash. Apparently neither one of them was paying attention when Jim Leyland said that winning was not the most important thing. By some accounts, ARod didn't score because he decided not to pull a Pete Rose and crash into the catcher at home plate, though the AL ended up winning anyway. LaRussa held Albert Pujols back in case the game went into extra innings so that he wouldn't run out of position players.
If it really counted, he probably wouldn't have hesitated to pinch-hit Pujols in the 9th or sooner for someone, and then figured out the defensive alignment if it came to that later. He would have played for the win in the 9th and made do in extra innings with whatever was left.
The truth is, for some time now, winning has taken a back seat to showmanship and satisfying the wishes of individual teams. Whitey Herzog in 1983 at least said so openly: I don't care about winning, I care about giving everyone a chance to play. He was probably exaggerating his indifference a bit, but the truth is, today's All-Star manager has a roster of players who often come with notes from their team saying, "Don't play my guy" or "My pitcher only goes 1 inning." The starters aren't chosen by the managers unless the leading vote getter has to bow out with an injury. There are all kinds of considerations besides winning involved here. Jim Leyland purposely placed his 3 Tiger starters at the bottom of the order to dispel any suggestion of favoritism and asked his own right fielder Ordonez to move to left instead of Vlad Guerrero. It's not that these moves were ridiculous. It's simply that he had higher concerns than simply winning the game.
The truth is, this game is still an exhibition, and nobody really acts like it counts all that much. To suggest that it is a very important game in the middle of a given season is the height of stupidity. Deep down inside, nobody truly believes it.
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