This wasn't exactly what Houston fans had in mind when they envisioned Roger Clemens starting the 75th All-Star Game on Tuesday night at Minute Maid Park.
The crowd had barely calmed itself from the buzz created by the appearance of ceremonial first-pitch honoree Muhammad Ali when Clemens put the National League in a quick six-run hole, which led to a 9-4 American League win.

An Ivan Rodriguez RBI triple and two-run homer by Manny Ramirez gave the AL an immediate 3-0 lead. With two outs, Jason Giambi reached on a Jeff Kent error, and after Derek Jeter singled to left, game MVP Alfonso Soriano cleared the bases with a first-pitch homer to left field that gave the AL a six-run advantage.

Soriano finished 2-for-3 with three RBIs and one run scored.

"I felt a little sorry because he's been nice to me all of the time," Soriano said of Clemens, a teammate when both were with the Yankees last season. "But you know, I had to do my job in the game. I am sorry, but you know, I am happy right now."

As was everyone else in the AL lockeroom. National Leaguers were a little stunned.

"It goes to show you that on any given night, anything can happen," Mets All-Star lefty Tom Glavine said. "We're all human in this game. For Roger -- he's had such a storied career -- it hasn't happened much, if at all. I'm sure he'd tell you that if he was going to have a bad outing, I'm sure he would rather it be an All-Star Game rather than one in September in a pennant race."

Clemens was throwing on two days' rest, said Kent, but the hurler refused to use it as an excuse.

"It was a tough go of it," Clemens said. "I threw a couple of breaking balls and they hit them. Going in, (Anaheim's Vladimir) Guerrero was the guy I was worried about the most and he was the only guy I got out.

"It happens. You face a good lineup and somebody gets on and somebody flips one out of here and it's a tough outing. The biggest thing to me is I wanted to go two innings to help out and I wasn't able to."

Starting NL catcher Mike Piazza said Clemens appeared to shake off a few pitches before the Boston outfielder deposited an 0-2 pitch to the seats in left field.

"We were a little indecisive there," Piazza said. "I went through every pitch. It was a front-door breaking ball, and (Ramirez) put on a pretty good swing.

"I put it down and (Clemens) threw it. It wasn't the greatest location and Ramirez is a great hitter. They had a couple of balls to right field and Sammy (Sosa) had some trouble with the sun out there. It could have made a little difference. But his velocity was as good as I've seen."

The AL dugout was energized by the Ramirez blast, but at least one teammate wasn't surprised.

"Everybody knows Manny," said Boston and AL All-Star teammate David Ortiz. "No one was surprised in the dugout when Manny hit the ball like that. Manny puts so much into it every time he steps up to the plate. Manny is such a great hitter. It was a good pitch. He's so good that he can stay with it and still drive it like that. He said, 'I guess that's my first big hit in an All-Star Game, as long as I've been playing in All-Star games.'"

The inning marked the most one team has scored in an All-Star Game since the AL tallied a record seven runs in the third inning in 1983. It was also only the second time in All-Star history a team has scored six runs in a single frame.

"He was excited to be starting in this All-Star Game," Clemens' Astros teammate Carlos Beltran said. "This is his home crowd. To be able to play for the Houston Astros and be able to start in the game here in Houston, it really means a lot to him. He prepared himself. Unfortunately, he had a tough outing today."
 
"It was a tough go of it," Clemens said. "I threw a couple of breaking balls and they hit them. Going in, (Anaheim's Vladimir) Guerrero was the guy I was worried about the most and he was the only guy I got out." 
-- Roger Clemens 

And it happens to the best of them, said National League manager Jack McKeon.

"He's been a warrior," McKeon said. "You manage in this league so many years, you say to them, 'Get to this guy early, because if you let him get by, he's going to be tough.' We saw the same thing in the World Series last year with Roger. We got a couple three runs off him in the first inning and the rest of the night, he shut us down."

Said AL manager Joe Torre, Clemens' former Yankee skipper: "I was kidding all week about scoring five or six runs off him in the first inning, never dreaming it was ever possible."

McKeon's plan to pitch Clemens two innings changed rather abruptly when the right-hander threw 35 pitches in the opening frame.

"We figured Roger might be able to go two, but after he threw 30-some odd pitches, I don't think it was advisable to let him go," McKeon said. "And here was a youngster (Dan Kolb) out here that could warm up quickly and had a chance to get him in the game rather than go with (Randy) Johnson, who maybe we didn't give enough time to warm up."

The crowd of 41,886 was given very little to cheer for until the fourth when the National League scored three runs off Cleveland's C.C. Sabathia. Kent knocked a two-out single, followed by a base hit by Beltran. Edgar Renteria plated Kent with a ground-rule double down the left-field line, and two more runs scored on a double by Albert Pujols.

Ortiz added a third homer for the AL in the sixth, a two-run shot that increased the AL lead to five and was the second homer of the night from the Red Sox contingent.

"Those guys have been doing it all year," said Yankees shortstop Jeter, happy to have Ramirez and Ortiz on his side for once. "We've seen Manny and Ortiz enough from playing against them so much."

American League starter Mark Mulder was credited with the win after holding the NL to one run over two innings of work. Being staked to a 6-0 lead didn't hurt.

"It actually helped me to relax," Mulder said of the big cushion. "It took some of the nerves away."

"We didn't change the game plan or anything," said Rodriguez, the AL's starting catcher. "Mulder was great. He kept the ball down and threw strikes, just like he always does."

Along the way, Mulder retired Barry Bonds on a routine fly ball to center field, which pleased him nearly as much as getting the win. When AL reliever Esteban Loaiza walked Bonds later in the game, the sellout crowd showered him with boos.

"I just didn't want to walk Bonds," Mulder said. "So everything was good tonight."

For the second year in a row, the World Series will begin in the American League ballpark.

Last year, the Yankees benefited from the AL All-Star win, garnering home-field advantage in the Fall Classic against the eventual champion Florida Marlins. The series lasted six games and ended on Josh Beckett's two-hit shutout at Yankee Stadium.

Did Torre gain any satisfaction out of his league grabbing home-field advantage again this year?

"It certainly helps when you get to go back home," he said. "We didn't take advantage of that last year. Last year, we couldn't get to (Games 6 and 7). I mean, we got to 6, but down 3-2, it's a tough thing."

 

At some point, you have to notice the subtle trend that has settled in at the All-Star Game: The American League wins all the time.

Overall, yes the National League still leads, due to a long stretch of dominance from the mid-1960s into the early 1980s. But this is not your father's All-Star Game. With its 7-5 victory Tuesday night, the AL now has an eight-game All-Star winning streak, its longest winning streak in the history of the Midsummer Classic.

Why? Look at the two starting lineups for the 76th All-Star Game. The American League's advantage fairly leaps off the page. With all due respect to the Senior Circuit, the AL lineup is more likely to produce runs at six of the nine offensive positions. If we accept the premise that the All-Star pitching is roughly even, with pitching brilliance on both sides of the argument, the AL should win. And it does.

It was a lineup without holes, without breathing spaces, without even momentary pauses, that the AL sent into play at Comerica Park.

"Any time you have possibly the league's MVP (Baltimore's Brian Roberts) batting ninth, you're a pretty good team," said Boston's Johnny Damon, the AL's starting center fielder and leadoff man.

There is no overstating how good this lineup was. It looked like it was drawn up, not by a manager, but by a higher power, an entity with even more sweeping powers than the Commissioner.

While the American League was loaded top to bottom, the National League starting lineup included two players whose 2005 numbers were decidedly sub-Star in quality. Those would be the two representatives of the New York Mets, Mike Piazza and Carlos Beltran.

We can argue about the reasons for this, but Piazza is not the offensive force that he once was, and Beltran has not yet lived up to the hype he received as the prince of the most recent free-agent class. And yet, on mere name recognition and sheer quantity of publicity, Piazza and Beltran become almost rote choices for many National League voters.

It was not particularly surprising when the American League starters piled up a 5-0 lead after just four innings. This was largely what was supposed to happen based on the relative run-producing capabilities of the two starting lineups.

All-Star MVP shortstop Miguel Tejada hit fifth for the American League team.

"I was happy to be hitting in the middle of this lineup," Tejada said. "Hitting after Manny (Ramirez), hitting in front of Vladimir Guerrero, you know you're supposed to score a lot of runs."

The National League's starting shortstop was David Eckstein, a worthy player on several different levels. But as Eckstein himself said when asked about a comparison of the two teams: "Put it this way -- I'm no Miguel Tejada.

"They've got big bats, and they can hit the ball out of the park and change the game. We've got some big bats too, but not consistently through the lineup as much as they do at each position, man-for-man. They did a really good job tonight."

Good things happen to good people who make the right gestures. And Miguel Tejada was paid back with all the positive karma in the world on Tuesday night at Comerica Park.

On Monday, he stepped aside to allow fellow Dominican David Ortiz to take his spot in the CENTURY 21 Home Run Derby, thus forfeiting the possibility of defending his 2004 title. And Tuesday night, he was the catalyst of the American League's 7-5 victory over the Nationals both on the field and at the plate.

For his second-inning homer, a pearl of a double play in the top of the opening inning, and a pair of RBIs, Tejada was named the Ted Williams All-Star Game MVP presented by Chevrolet.

"I'm never going to forget these two days, because yesterday, even in the home run contest, I enjoyed every moment," said Tejada, the Baltimore Orioles shortstop. "David put on a great show. All of the guys put on a great show. I got a chance to play with my kids and this time I didn't have to hit it. Today I had a chance to have a great game and get the MVP."

The format of the derby this year mirrored the international theme of these times. The World Baseball Classic will take place next March 3-20, and 16 teams with Major League players will represent their own countries for the first time.

Eight players in the Home Run Derby each represented their own nations. There wasn't room for two Dominicans. So despite the fact that he had hit a then-record 27 homers in Houston's Minute Maid Park to ice last year's derby, Tejada stepped aside this year.

"I think that David Ortiz, being the top home run hitter in the Dominican the last three years, that's why he was the perfect guy to represent our country," Tejada said.

Ortiz was eliminated in the second round, while Venezuelan Bobby Abreu of the Philadelphia Phillies belted a record shattering 41 homers to take this year's derby.

Tejada, a former AL MVP for the Oakland A's in 2003, still seems to be one of baseball's unsung heroes, although that scenario has begun to change during the two seasons since he signed as a free agent with the Orioles.

"Tejada is one of the most underrated players in the era when I've been playing," said Alex Rodriguez, the All-Star third baseman from the New York Yankees who played alongside Tejada on Tuesday night. "Now that he's on the East Coast, he's getting a lot more eyes on him."

The 76th All-Star Game will go down as a different type of Midsummer Classic, a celebration of the increasing global popularity of baseball and the international superstars who fill more and more big-league rosters every season.

But with a 7-5 victory over the National League before 41,617 in Comerica Park on Tuesday night, the American League proved it's still rockin' in the free world.

"Tonight was a great game for the American League," AL third baseman Alex Rodriguez said. "We brought a lot to the table. ... We had guys that could hit the ball out of the ballpark at any time, in any direction. It was a fun game for us."

It should have been, because the AL won its third straight All-Star Game and by rule its third straight home-field advantage in the World Series. The Junior Circuit also ran its undefeated All-Star streak to nine. The NL hasn't won since 1996.

And a day after Major League Baseball announced the March 2006 debut of the World Baseball Classic, several players who are expected to be key participants in the 16-country tournament shined on the game's biggest midseason stage.

Leading that charge was Dominican superstar shortstop Miguel Tejada of the Baltimore Orioles, who started the party with a homer, got the defense rolling with a Gold Glove-caliber play, and walked away with the Ted Williams Most Valuable Player Award presented by Chevrolet. Tejada is the fifth Latin American-born player among the last eight MVP winners.

Tejada kicked off the AL's fiesta and helped induce another NL siesta with his glove.

With Monday night's CENTURY 21 Home Run Derby champion, Bobby Abreu, on first base for the NL after a leadoff single in the first inning, Carlos Beltran scorched an offering from AL starter and winning pitcher Mark Buehrle up the middle for what appeared to be a single.

But Tejada ranged a few feet to his left, knocked the ball down and flipped it to his Orioles teammate, Brian Roberts, while on the ground for a rally-stifling, highlight-reel double play.

"I think more than the home run, I think the play he made defensively in the first inning, to me, that relaxes Buehrle," AL manager Terry Francona said. "The whole game, I think, changes on that. That's a heck of a play."

It shifted the momentum right into the AL dugout and right into Tejada's wheelhouse.

Tejada got the scoring going with a no-doubter of a solo shot off Atlanta Braves ace John Smoltz, crushing an 0-1 fastball 436 feet into the left-field seats for his first career All-Star Game home run.

"I tried to make the best pitches I could against a great lineup," said Smoltz, who took the loss while pitching in his hometown. "One got away."

Dominican slugger David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox made it 2-0 in the third with an RBI single off the wall in right field against Roy Oswalt.

Tejada pushed another run across in that inning with an RBI fielder's choice, and Japanese outfielder Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners kept the pressure on with a two-run single in the fourth against Livan Hernandez.

"I think the game is going in the direction of more international players playing in the Major Leagues," Ichiro said through an interpreter. "We're not quite there yet. It's going to get more globalized."

Fair enough, but the global baseball power of the United States wasn't about to be left out of the AL's All-Star party.

After two opening shutout innings, the AL went from Buehrle to burlier, giving the ball to Angels ace Bartolo Colon, a big man who tossed a big third inning before yielding to Johan Santana, Matt Clement and Jon Garland. All three kept the NL quiet through the sixth while the AL did more damage.