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NEW YORK — Give Boston Red Sox's manager Terry Francona credit. It's tough enough trying to manage a 15-inning All-Star Game and a blood feud at the same time. Oh yes … and get the win and give your league home-field advantage for a World Series you could be managing.
But that's precisely the balancing act pulled off last night by Francona, the American League manager, who showed a deft touch with his use of New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera and surviving a remarkable missed opportunity in the 10th inning when with the bases loaded and none out after back to back errors by Dan Uggla, his All-Stars could not bring across a run.
In the end, Michael Young's sacrifice fly with one out in the 15th inning brought in New Westminster, B.C.'s Justin Morneau with the winning run in a 4-3 victory.
Morneau, who led off the inning with a single and advanced to second on Dioner Navarro's bloop single, going to third on J.D. Drew's walk. Morneau slid in ahead of the throw from right-fielder Corey Hart as the AL extended its unbeaten streak to 12 games.
National League batter Matt Holliday of the Colorado Rockies hits a solo home run in the fifth inning. (Mike Segar/Reuters)
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Drew was named Most Valuable Player.
Morneau said there was little doubt he was going on Young's fly ball. "Strange to see a game like that end on a routine kind of play," Morneau said. "I knew when I left the bag I had a chance because I could see a little daylight between the catcher (Brian McCann) and the plate. If the throw had been on the other side, I might not have made it."
Francona and National League manager Clint Hurdle used all 64 players in the longest All-Star Game in history (four hours and 50 minutes), as the teams combined for 34 strikeouts, eclipsing the record of 30 set in 1967. That game, a 2-1, 15-inning win for the National League in Anaheim, also had the previous record for longest All-Star game until last night: three hours, 41 minutes.
The teams left a total of 28 runners on base and Hurdle said that Lidge was only going to go one more inning, after which he would have turned to third baseman David Wright. Scott Kazmir, the AL starter, said he was ready to go "however long they needed me," even though he threw 104 pitches on Sunday.
Uggla, the Florida Marlins slugging second baseman, had what will go down in history as one of the worst-ever All-Star Games: three errors, three strikeouts plus a double play grounder with runners on the corners.
Strange night — and morning.
It saw a Red Sox's player, Drew, receive a standing ovation — at Yankee Stadium! — for a two-run home run that tied the score in the seventh.
But just when you wondered if whether booing aside the old rivalry wouldn't really manifest itself during the game — keep your Tampa Bay Rays and Josh Hamiltons and division-leading Chicago Cubs and White Sox, it always seems to come down to Yankees and Red Sox, doesn't it? — in came Jonathan Papelbon in the eighth.
Oh my.
The Red Sox's closer was trashed in the tabloids yesterday for being a little too coy when he was asked whether he or Rivera was the AL closer for the game. He was serenaded with chants of 'Mariano!' and 'Over-rated!' and booed off the field after giving up the third run.
"Yeah, it was different to get an ovation like that here — although it was brief," said Drew. "When I got back into the outfield, things were back to normal."
With the score tied 3-3, Francona let Francisco Rodriguez start the ninth and then took him out for Rivera with one out and a runner on first. His reasoning was simple: had Rodriguez induced a double play and the AL scored a run in the bottom of the ninth, he would have left Rivera unused.
Rivera, whose entrance into the game to his trademark 'Enter Sandman' song had the stadium shaking, instead combined with catcher Dioner Navarro for a strike 'em out, throw 'em out double play.
Rivera also escaped the 10th on a 4-6-3 double play with Russell Martin, the Los Angeles Dodgers catcher and native of Chelsea, Que., on third base after working Rivera for a seven-pitch, lead-off single to the opposite field. Martin caught 10 innings before being replaced by Brian McCann, throwing out a base-runner on a night when the AL stole a record six bases and blocking the plate to tag out Navarro, the potential winning run, on a throw from centre-fielder Nate McLouth for the second out of the 11th.
All three Canadian-born players appeared in the game. Morneau, the native of New Westminster, B.C., was on base when Drew hit his two-run homer and Ryan Dempster retired the side (Ian Kinsler, Navarro and Drew) in the ninth.
Francona showed a deft touch in taking current Yankees players Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter out of the game while they were in the field, so they could be accorded a proper send-off from the sell-out crowd of 55,632.
Drew said later that he marvelled at "seeing the coaching staff and Terry racking their brains trying to make things work."
Jeter sent kudos to Francona.
"I have the utmost respect for Terry, for the way he handles himself and treats everybody with respect," said Derek Jeter. "All he wants is respect in return."
Yet this game wasn't about any individual player. It was about the stadium, which will be razed after the season at which time the Yankees will move into a new, money-making colossus across the street. So this will be the fourth and final All-Star Game in the House That Ruth Built — and the House That Yogi, Whitey, Reggie, Derek and Mariano Helped Maintain.
Yankees greats Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Goose Gossage and Reggie Jackson were among 49 Hall of Famers to enter the stadium from Monument Park and take up their respective positions around the diamond and they and their peers were accorded the type of ovations to be expected from a savvy baseball crowd.
The Toronto Blue Jays Roy Halladay worked a nine-pitch fourth, in which Albert Pujols singled into the right-field corner only to have Ichiro Suzuki throw him out at second.
"So much goes through your mind going into the game, but you know when you do get out there it's going to go by quickly and that you better enjoy it," said Halladay, who listed seeing Ford as the highlight of the night.
"The Hall of Fame thing made it really special, because those are all the guys who made baseball special."
