Three strikes, yer out!

Last Tuesday, Major League Baseball hosted its midseason All-Star Game, which, if you are unfamiliar with the game of baseball — but how could that be if its our national sport? — well, then, for the Czechs in the audience, here are the facts. The MLB consists of two leagues — the American and the National. Each league sends its best players, as voted on by the fans, to the midseason All-Star Game. Coming in to Tuesday’s game, the American League had won it 249 years in a row.

Now, any fan worth his or her salt who watches this game is going to root for the league that includes their home team.

That puts me in a bit of a dilemma.

My first home team was the Montreal Expos, who played in the National League. The Expos will always be my home team. No matter that I haven’t lived in Montreal since 1977, not to mention the Expos no longer exist and haven’t for 21 years, home teams are in your blood for life.

I’ve since lived in cities that have their own baseball teams, and out of necessity have quasi-adopted these baseball home teams while I was in residence. As luck would have it, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston Red Sox are two that were my quasi-home teams when each of them won the World Series in their (and my) respective years. It’s something to be a fan when your team is on a tear. And that sure never happened with the Expos.

Thing is, Toronto and Boston play in the American League. I rooted for them all year long. Except when it came to the All-Star Game. Once a National Leaguer, always a National Leaguer.

None of which is what I started off to tell you, which is what happened at this year’s All-Star Game. They instituted something new. Traditionally, and still, the home plate umpire calls strikes and balls and yells “Yer out!” He is always right, even when he’s wrong. If you question his rightness, you are ejected from the game.

But now, at least at Tuesday’s game, the catcher was able to challenge the umpire’s calls. Unbelievable. I felt the earth move as dead umpires turned over in their graves. In both challenges I saw, the umpire’s call was overturned. And we, the fans glued to our television sets, could see the batter’s strike zone and where the ball actually came in, right there on the screen. I bet AI is doing that now. I like it; I like it a lot. I’m not saying we should replace the umps with robots. Somebody’s gotta yell, “Yer out!” and AI just wouldn’t cut it. But it sure seems to know how to call balls and strikes better than the ump.

Oh, and the game. In a peculiar end to the game, The National League won. Resurrected from the dead.

Today’s mood music, the Rolling Stones …