Whew! Is it over yet?

FIVE HOURS and fifteen innings later, the American League extended its winning streak to eleven games, not including the TIE game that our feckless baseball commissioner Bud Selig permitted in 2002.

It was game of firsts, and a historical last. It will be the last All-Star game played in the House That Ruth Built. But it was also a game that set a record of men left on base and stolen bases. In a game this long (actually ten minutes shy of five hours) there were bound to be lots of web gems. Several players got tagged out in close plays at home, except, alas, for the last AL player who missed being thrown out at home by inches, if that much. 

It was a live-action version of hanging chads.

Tampa Bay made up for years as the MLB doormat team with a rookie player, one of three Rays players in the lineup. Maybe dropping the Devil in front of Rays was a good idea after all, although being the Angels didn't help Anaheim. 

The Astros were represented by Berkman and Tejada. Had the National League won, I'm certain Tejada would have been named MVP of the game. But when Lidge stepped on the mound at the bottom of the 15th, I had a feeling the game was about to end. Call it a hunch.

With fifteen - count 'em, fifteen! - Hall-of-Famers gathered together on the infield, I was touched to the core watching the crowd go wild when Yogi Berra was introduced. It made up for the nauseating spectacle of Yankees players kissing the *** of that sawdust Caesar, George Steinbrenner.