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It’s a big week in baseball, with the Duluth Huskies making a concerted bid to rise to the top of the second-half standings in the Northwoods League, while the Major Leagues went off to New York for their annual All-Star party.

There was a time when the All-Star game enthralled the whole country, back in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ‘80s, when the top players from the American League and National League got together and put on a thoroughly captivating battle for supremacy, or at least bragging rights. I recall the days when a manager might send his top three pitchers out, adhering to the rule of a 3-inning limit, and go all-out to win.

 And the best few players might play the whole game defensively - never mind the silliness of getting everybody into the game.
The nine starters were most important, after being voted to their positions, and the spares were just that. Spares. They were great players, but the starters got the nod.
The game evolved to something closer to a 3-day break from the tedium of a 162-game season. Players would go home, see the family, go fishing, or just lay around. Take a break and recharge the mental batteries for the second half. Trouble is, as the salaries rose to absurd millions per season, what hold did the game have on the players? Some would beg off with a creatively alleged injury, preferring the days off to the All-Star hoopla.
Even saying the winner’s league gets the home-field advantage for the World Series hasn’t helped much. Inter-league play has helped eliminate the mystique of trying to beat the other league. Now it’s an exhibition, with great camaraderie and sportsmanship smiles and pats on the backs everywhere.

It was interesting that the American League beat the National League 4-0, with the AL guys scratching out runs on sacrifice flies and fielder’s choices, while a herd of pitchers limited the NL to only three or four hits, scattered over the nine innings. Mariano Rivera, the best closer of all-time, celebrated his final season by coming on to hurl a 1-2-3 eighth, and it was a neat trick that when he was announced, the rest of the AL team stayed in the dugout, so Rivera jogged in from the bullpen, took the mound to roars from the New York fans, and stood there, all alone.

A true highlight was Prince Fielder smacking a ball that Carlos Gomez couldn’t catch in center field, then racing his wide-body around the bases to dive in with a triple. It also was neat that Twins closer Glen Perkins and former Twins closer Joe Namath warmed up side by side in the eighth, and Nathan got the call. He struck out two guys on called strikes, then gave up a double before ending the ninth on a pop-up. I was hoping Perkins would get called in for the last hitter, but it worked out just fine.

They gave Rivera the MVP award later, and it was a sentimental choice, because he pitched an inning in a game where nobody really was the MVP. I might have voted for Fielder, just because he got a real rise out of the crowd when he turned on the jets for that triple. But the Rivera tribute was fine. Everybody was happy on the AL side, and now it’s back to the battle lines.

HUSKIES ROLL

The Duluth Huskies are finding ways to win, and finding ways to both draw over 1,000 a game and entertain them well at Wade Stadium. Last week they made the Rochester Honkers look like anything but a last-place team for seven innings, but rallied from a 2-1 deficit with two runs, dramatically scored in the last of the seventh, and held on to win 3-2.

Michael Suiter got a hit and came around to slide in for the tying run when first baseman Trey Vavra dumped a single to right field. Vavra, incidentally, is the son of Twins base coach Joe Vavra. The split season in the Northwoods League gave all the teams a fresh start, although the Huskies were also freed from a system of alternating winning and losing streaks. They’ve played better and more consistent baseball in the second half, and are definitely a contender in their division.

Not only that, but the hot dogs are good at Wade, and some of the between-innings gimmicks are fun. I do wonder, however, in this Great White North country, how anybody could take a recording of wolves howling and play it as though it’s the sound of Huskies! Please...take a recorder out and catch the start of the John Beargrease Sled Dog marathon, then we’d have a truly unique and accurate sound of a sled-dog team of huskies at their finest.
 
TWINS REPRESENTED
WELL AT ALL-STAR GAME

Along with Joe Mauer, who batted eighth and delivered a customary line drive hit, and Perkins, the Twins were represented by no fewer than eight former Twins in All-Star guise of some sort. Designated hitter David Ortiz of the Red Sox, shortstop J.J. Hardy of Baltimore, and Michael Cuddyer of Colorado all started the game and all are former Twins.

So are Torii Hunter of Detroit, closer Nathan of Texas, Milwaukee center fielder Carlos Gomez. Jesse Crain, another former Twins reliever, made the team but was scratched with an injury, and yet another ex-Twin pitcher, Grant Balfour of Oakland, was a late addition when A’s teammate Bartolo Colon couldn’t make it.

When you line them all up, along with other ex-Twins such as Ben Revere, Denard Span, Francisco Liriano, Kyle Lohse, Matt Garza, and Johan Santana -- among others - you see the makings of a roster that would not only be competitive, but might be dominant if reassembled. Such are the problems with free agency, when players can run off from multi-million-dollar contracts for greater millions elsewhere, forcing trades or simply leaving by free agency.

It also is a commentary on the idiotic suggestion in the Twin Cities media that manager Ron Gardenhire should be released, or fired, or encouraged to quit as Twins manager. Gardenhire loves his job, loves the game, and is the perfect guide for a youthful and rebuilding group of players that might grow up to properly complement Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau and the rest. There was even some grumbling when Gardenhire decided it would be best for a couple of top prospects, Chris Parmalee and Oswaldo Arcia, to spend the All-Star break going down to AAA Rochester and play four more games. Both of them have shown flashes of brilliance, but recently they have been striking out a lot. So what could be better than going down and playing hard, but getting their rhythm back.

Gardenhire is not the problem with the Twins. The Twins are the problem with the Twins. They have a few young players who have been bright spots, better than we expected. But not enough of them have been good enough lately. After the Twins lost that 4-3 13-inning game at Tampa Bay, striking out 19 times in the process to tie an all-time franchise record, they then fanned 13 times, then 12, 11, and 14 times, for a total of 69 strikeouts in five games. That’s an average of 14 a game, which is incredible.

But here’s the bizarre part: After falling into what appeared to be a deep crevasse of hopelessness, inspiring all those Twin Cities “experts” to rant about changes and Gardenhire, and hopelessness, the Twins won 4-1 at Yankee Stadium while striking out those 11 times, and they won again, 10-4, in the final game before the All-Star break, while striking out 14 more times. So yes, things look hopeless. But when you’re in the game as deeply as Gardenhire is, the half-full glass means the Twins will start the second half of the season on a  two-game winning streak.