Another Uggly loss for NL

Some thoughts and notes from the all-star game.

It took a record-tying 15 innings, but the AL finally pushed the NL off the Lidge (Brad, the losing pitcher) for a 4-3 win.

In terms of time, it was the longest game ever.

Every available player on both rosters got in the game.

Winning pitcher, Scott Kazmir of Tampa Bay, wasn't supposed to play, but manager Terry Francona ran out of arms.

JD Drew was the MVP, and he deserved it.

Dan Uggla was easily the LVP, and turned in quite possibly the worst performance ever by an all-star. He was 0-4 at the plate with three strikeouts and a double play. On the DP and one of the strikeouts, he had a chance to give the NL an extra-inning lead by driving in a runner from third with less than two outs. He also made three errors, all by failing to field a ground ball cleanly. He fumbled another grounder as well, but still managed to get the out. Two of the errors came in one inning, but none of them led to a run.

It was a rough night for some others too. The umps blew calls on at least two tag plays, one at second and one at home. Even announcer Joe Buck made three silly mistakes, like miscounting hits and confusing positions.

Honoring the Hall of Famers is nice, but MLB went overboard. It took longer to announce the starting lineups (and not even in order) than to play the first four innings of the game.

Tim Lincecum of the Giants missed the game because he had been hospitalized that morning with flu-like symptoms. Still, I thought they should have "introduced" him with the rest of the NL reserves, and announced why he wasn't there. Instead, they just skipped him entirely, like he wasn't even named to the team.

The locals had kind of hit-and-miss games. Kosuke Fukudome, Geovany Soto, Carlos Quentin and Joe Crede were a combined 0-9. Aramis Ramirez batted once and walked. He immediately came out of the game for a pinch runner (who was caught stealing). The pitchers fared better though. Carlos Zambrano faced six hitters in two innings. He got a double play after giving up a hit in the third, and picked off a runner in the fourth. He was in line to pick up the win for the NL before Drew's HR tied the game. Ryan Dempster struck out the side in the 9th and Carlos Marmol struck out two of the four hitters he faced in the 13th. The only runner against Marmol reached on an Uggla error.

Washington SS Cristian Guzman played 3B for the rest of the game after pinch running for Ramirez, even though he has never played the position in the big leagues.

Colorado pitcher Aaron Cook pitched three adventurous innings, but didn't get scored on. In the 11th, he faced five hitters, the first four of which reached base. One was wiped out on a caught stealing and another was thrown out at home. Both of those calls were questionable.

Pretty bold of Budweiser to go on with the ad campaign referring to Bud as the Great American Lager, don't you think?

I could go the rest of my life and never hear another word about Yankee Stadium. And I like the place.