It's not the game. The credits are rolling and the doors have opened by the final three innings and the game is being decided; some starters have been known to be on an airplane by the ninth inning.
There is no Newcombesque noose around the neck of Tom Glavine for being named an All-Star six times and compiling a 13.50 ERA, no Dentesque place in history for Lee Mazzilli's RBI walk and home run in the '79 game in Seattle. Heathcliff Slocumb won an All-Star Game. The players voted Felix Mantilla a starter, Luis Aparicio received hundreds of thousands of votes after he'd retired, and Charlie Lea and Dave Stenhouse started All-Star Games. When Kent Bottenfield, the National League's winningest pitcher, was asked this week if he thought he should start Tuesday night in Boston, he replied that his scheduled start Sunday against the Tigers meant more.
A half-century ago, the game meant something. That's when Ted Williams won the game in Detroit in 1941, and why Dizzy Dean and Ted got hurt trying to win. But baseball, and the country, were different then. The game was glamour and ego; the whole idea of an All-Star Game in any sport - an idea that grew up in The Depression, whose realization came during The Dust Bowl - was 8 years old when Ted homered off Claude Passeau. There was always that sense the games meant something to those great National League players who beat the American League 19 out of 21 times in the '50s and '60s.
''We always had the feeling that we were better than the American League,'' Bob Gibson once said. ''And we liked to prove it.''
Arrogance?
''Not really,'' NL regular Joe Morgan said. ''We just liked to prove we were better, which we were.''
When Juan Gonzalez popped off about the voting and Joe Torre's reward to players who brought New York a world championship, it brought back memories of Garry Templeton's ''If I ain't startin', I ain't departin'' statement from another generation. The fact is in the late '70s and early '80s, players invented injuries like they were spring training road trips; Carl Yastrzemski, for instance, passed four times after being elected. Jim Frey probably hasn't forgiven Fred Lynn for leaving the '81 game early, which meant Frey had to bat Dave Stieb in the ninth in a 5-4 loss.
There were memorable moments, too, such as Reggie Jackson's homer in '71, or the Roger Clemens-Doc Gooden matchup in '86, the year Roger went 24-4 and the year after Doc was 24-4. Or Bo Jackson's home run off Rick Reuschel in Anaheim in '89.
To many players who appreciated and respected their profession, to be named an All-Star meant something. When the game was in San Diego in '92 and the FanFest was at the Convention Center along the harbor, there were people from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tewksbury to Tallahassee. Hometown favorite Tony Gwynn observed, ''There's a great feeling coming back.''
Just as important, somewhere in the early part of the decade, the game became important to the players again. ''There's a tremendous feeling being in this locker room because it's a very select, exclusionary group,'' Mark Grace said in '94. Anyone who saw a young Tiger infielder named Travis Fryman look around in amazement that day understood what it meant. Or Nomar Garciaparra's face and unbounded joy two years ago. ''It does mean something,'' Garciaparra said. ''Don't let anyone tell you differently.''
''Sometimes it seems as if this is a dream,'' Darin Erstad said last summer in Denver. ''What everyone wants is to play on a winning team. But this is a different feeling. This is an honor that places you in a group you dreamed of being in.''
Standing beside him, Tiger second baseman Damion Easley said, ''Forever, we are linked to Griffey and Rodriguez and all the greats. It's a little chilling.''
Gonzalez never asked for the time off. His ego was bruised, and ego is one of the elements that shape greatness. And ego is a big part of being in that locker room. Families fly in from across the country, media from around the world. Imagine what it will be like for Jack and Adele Donsick of Brookline, lifetime Red Sox fans and parents of a Red Sox fanatic named Lin Ausmus, whose son, Brad, will make his first All-Star appearance in the park he visited so often in his childhood. Maybe he'll even get a locker next to his favorite Red Sox player ever, Garciaparra.
It always means something to David Cone because of his appreciation for everything around him. He will look across the locker room at Fenway and feel very good that B.J. Surhoff is there, too, because Surhoff is one of those players whom every player respects because, like Cone, he always accepts responsibility.
Being there has really come to mean something, and not just because of all the millions of dollars baseball pockets from concessions. It has come to mean something because players such as Junior Griffey and Sammy Sosa have cared enough to make it special again, all of which makes one wish that George Brett and Robin Yount were 30 again.
The game may be 6-4 with a couple of errors. Maybe Jose Offerman will get the winning hit, or maybe Ausmus or Jeff Bagwell. By about the fourth inning, a lot of the people who paid $3,500 to $4,000 for their seats will realize that they paid not for a game like the '78 Red Sox-Yankee playoff or the Mets-Astros sixth game in '86, but just to be there.
Because it's not the game. It's the celebration of the game, and the players who make it great.
Peter Gammons is a regular contributor to the Globe and is ESPN's major league baseball analyst.
