ASG Live Blog: Pregame Intros

This was always my favorite part of the game as a kid -- because it was the one time I'd actually get to see the Twins' lone representative. For years, it was Rod Carew in the starting lineup. Then in the early 80s it got real ugly -- Doug Corbett, Dave Engle, Bombo Rivera (not really, but if fans could vote a million times over the internet like you can now, he would have made it).

Then Gary Gaetti ruined the whole thing for me. One year he writes "Hi Rex" on his batting gloves to greet Kent Hrbek back at home. The next year, he writes "Jesus Saves" on his gloves. And the world has not been the same since.

5:02 p.m. Nice to see Nate McLouth and Ryan Ludwick lined up next to each other. How do you think that conversation went? "Soak it all up, buddy -- we'll never be back here again."

5:05 p.m. Jim Leyland stopped smoking long enough to tip his cap on the baseline. I'm sure he deployed the emergency nicotine patch for the 10 minutes away from the dugout tunnel.

Joe Nathan rubbed his nose before waving to the camera. Either he was sending a signal to somebody at home, or he can't stop twitching even when he's standing still.

5:10 p.m. One local note -- just saw an ad for a contest that is sponsored by Las Vegas -- the winner gets a trip here. I find this interesting because the NFL wouldn't even allow advertisements for the NBC TV show "Vegas," let alone ads for Vegas.com or other entities. Never thought I'd see the day when MLB was more forward-thinking than the NFL.

5:13 p.m. Hall of Fame time! Man, Eckersley looks like he could still be playing. Gaylord Perry looks like he pitched to Ty Cobb. And right about now, Bert Blyleven kicked his dog.

If somebody had told you a year ago that Cliff Lee would be standing next to Steve Carlton on All-Star night, you would have thought Lee was washing his windshield.

Ooh, good. Harmon wore a Twins cap. I was afraid he might go with the Royals.

Gotta love Yankees fans -- they boo any Red Sox on cue, but after the big buildup to Whitey Ford, he got a few golf claps. I'm guessing most of these mooks have never even heard of Whitey Ford, but they could look him up on their Blackberries if they weren't so busy texting their financial advisors right now.

I get that MLB is trying to copy the NFL with their Hall-of-Fame blazers, but it's just not working. This thing looks like a Realtors convention.

A-Rod is wearing white shoes. Jeter is not. 'Nuff said.

Give Milton Bradley credit -- he didn't punch anybody on his way out to his spot on the field.

Did they forget the catchers? You have to think Joe Buck screwed that up. First he announced the managers, then the catchers, then the Hall of Fame catchers. Buck must have been distracted by a quarter somebody dropped on the press box floor.

Where's Johnny Bench? Didn't he make the Hall of Fame just on his "Baseball Bunch" career alone?

5:37 p.m. Egads! George Steinbrenner is still alive! I can't believe they're letting him out in public. I don't want to say he's slipped a bit, but I think he just tried to fire Billy Martin again.

Nice ceremonial first pitch(es), but no pregame tribute to Yankee Stadium would be complete without the ceremonial first D-cell battery toss from the upper deck in right field.

Buck just threw it to commercial with, "When we come back, we will set up this All-Star Game, the 2008 version, here in the Bronx." What the hell have we been doing for the last hour and 37 minutes?!

5:47 p.m. Oh, right. They have to have a special segment just to introduce Tim McCarver into the mix. He just compared your body's core to the core of the NL lineup in an analogy that was about as tortured as a prisoner at Gitmo. OK, there's another tortured analogy for you, but what the hell? McCarver got me into the tortured analogy spirit.