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In Case You Were Watching the Game

While most of the people attending the All-Star Game and related activities were clearly from out of town and from the outskirts of San Francisco proper, there seemed to be genuine enthusiasm in the city for this celebration of baseball, even at events without Playboy Bunnies present. The DHL FanFest at the convention center offered kids and those of us who channel our inner youth the opportunity to meet Hall of Famers such as Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn as they gave clinics or promoted their latest ventures. I got the chance to visit the pitching cage and learn that 20 years since I last put the radar gun to my fastball, it had become my changeup. (Of course, the last time I threw I didn't have a Padrón Aniversario torpedo in my mouth. I do think that helped my control, though.) In my more delusional moments, I feel I can still go two strong innings, but don't ask me to run out a sac bunt.

The FanFest is the fulfillment of the capitalist ethic and proof that not only does the game count, it matters to some marketing budgets. There is much "merch." You can sign up for a MasterCard and get an All-Star blanket. You can get a ball just for signing up to get information about a Chevrolet. Or win one. Or did I just buy a Corvette?

Clearly, everything in sports in the twenty-first century is about branding and selling. Before the game, Taco Bell sponsored a "million-dollar swing." Yes, the "official quick service restaurant of Major League Baseball" gave one lucky fan the chance to take three cuts at balls sitting on a tee to see if he could make one of them travel far enough -- 280 feet on the fly -- to win the cash. He didn't get them out of the infield. DHL sponsored the "delivery" of the game ball to the mound. Despite the commercialism surrounding the game, there are some moments that make it memorable, but they rely on the past.

Just before the first pitch, the players from both teams formed a cortege in center field. Fittingly, they were positioned to welcome perhaps the greatest player ever to put on a glove, Willie Mays. Ted Williams, possibly the greatest hitter ever, once said, "They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays."

Mays's presence and the ceremony honoring him electrified the crowd. There was no mistaking the warmth of the response on a cold summer night by the Bay. Fathers tell their sons about the first time they saw Mays make a catch, or stretch a single into a double in his flailing base-running style. He gave so much joy to so many who watched him play. The man whom a former commissioner preposterously once banned from baseball, for serving as a goodwill ambassador for a casino, on this night got all our thanks and a little appreciation for his artistry, without saying a word or having to ask.

The site for next year's All-Star Game is all about the past, but the occasion will be bittersweet. The game will be at Yankee Stadium, a year before it gets torn down and replaced in 2009. Maybe by then, Barry Bonds will be halfway into his first year as the Yankees' DH. Maybe C. C. Sabathia can have his 28th birthday party at a certain Fifth Avenue cigar club. Maybe the Bunnies will drop by.

Alejandro Benes watches baseball in Southern California and suffers as a long-distance Orioles fan.

Click here to read a pre-game scouting report on San Francisco cigar bars.