Published: July 15, 2009 11:36 pm      

Ask Sam if the All-Star game matters

The feeling here is the league with the best record in interleague play should have the homefield advantage in the World Series, not the winner of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game. Of course, it doesn’t really matter what the feeling is here.

Even even though league supremacy where it really matters has been split down the middle, 3-3, since Commissioner Bud Weasel declared the All-Star Game to be the deciding factor for homefield, don’t believe for a moment that players, managers and coaches who are on teams with a legitimate shot at the postseason (frankly, it’s rarely discussed around these parts) aren’t acutely aware that it’s out there; and don’t believe for a moment they don’t want to win the All-Star game because of it.

At least that’s the impression I got at around 12:30 Wednesday morning, a little over an hour after the American League took down the Nationals 4-3, when my text message lit up with a one-word expletive, accentuated with an exclamation point, from our old friend Sam Perlozzo.

My how things have changed for Mr. Perlozzo in just a matter of two years. Two years ago, of course, was the absolute pits of the world, for Sam and for all of his friends and family back here on the homefront, as he was, to quote the great Pop Fisher, “ ... wet nurse to a last-place, dead-to-the-neck-up ball club, and I'm choking to death!”

OK, Sam never said anything like that about his days as manager of the Baltimore Orioles, nor did he even come close to saying he ever wanted to choke anybody, probably because there was enough of that going on in that particular O’s front office.

Nor, in fact, bad as it was, did Sam Perlozzo himself choke to death. He just moved on, as all good baseball lifers do; although the ride wasn’t nearly as pleasant as it was expected to be last season when the man who is still known in the Pacific Northwest as “The Man Who Waved Junior Home,” returned to Seattle to assume his old spot in the Mariners’ third-base coach’s box.

In short, the guy who had never in his life been associated with a losing team until Davey Johnson was shown the door on the same day he was named Manager of the Year, had to believe he was either being tested or was just stuck under a black cloud, because, after after nine-and-a-half straight losing seasons in Baltimore, the Mariners, expected to contend after making that crackerjack deal for Erik Bedard (yikes!), were absolutely horrible. So horrible, in fact, that another old friend, Jim Riggleman, now finds himself as the interim manager of a perfectly horrible team for the second season in a row. This year, Washington; last year, Seattle.

(And kudos, by the way, to Sean Morrissey of ESPN 1230 right here in Cumberland, for being the only media member ... in the nation ... to get an interview with the new Nationals skipper on Monday morning, the day Riggleman was named as Manny Acta’s replacement. This according to the Washington Post, the same people who first told us about Nixon. Great work, Sean.)

The Mariners, of course, started anew, and Perlozzo and Riggleman came back east, with Sam, of course, joining up as the third base coach for the defending world champion Philadelphia Phillies, which means Tuesday night in St. Louis he was also the third base coach of the National League All-Star team.

In short, life is good for Mr. Perlozzo once more, as he finds himself closer to home and with a first-place team that is intent on successfully defending its world title.

“Signing Pedro (Martinez) tomorrow,” Sam texted, “and outside chance for (Roy) Halladay. But I’ll have to see that to believe it.”

Which prompted this wise old baseball head to suggest, “You really, really, really need to get Halladay,” as though I was letting the Phillies in on just how good the Toronto ace, for whom the Blue Jays will no doubt accept nothing short of the moon and half the sky, with the other half of the sky to be named later, really is. This valuable insight, in turn, prompted a two-word response, which I took as an acknowledgement that I must really know this mysterious game called baseball:

“You think?”

Um, yeah. Try to get that guy. He’s not too bad.

“Heading to Philly now and then to Marlins tomorrow. Nice 4 game series.”

Heading to Philadelphia in the middle of the night, then hopping on a plane to fly to sunny, muggy, hot, miserable Miami in the middle of July to play a four-game series against a pretty good young team in one of the two absolute worst stadiums there are for baseball, might not seem like the ideal way to spend a four-day weekend. But when you’re the defending world champions with a five-game lead in the National League East and are in the process of making moves to make yourself even better, a four-day weekend in Bullfrog, North Dakota likely wouldn’t be that bad.

A sense of normalcy has returned. Sam Perlozzo is a member of a championship baseball team once more, which just goes to show us: Those baseball gods have a soft spot in their hearts after all.

Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.