By Jeff Goodman, Associated Press, 07/14/99
NEW YORK - Despite being played in the cozy confines of Fenway Park, the final baseball All-Star game of the century had few runs - and the second-lowest television rating in 30 years.
Wednesday night's 4-1 victory by the American League on Fox posted a 12.0 national rating and a 22 share, 9 percent lower than last season's NBC telecast that had a 13.3 and 25.
The lowest rating in the game's history, a 11.8 and 21, came in 1997, Fox's first broadcast of the event.
Fans in Cleveland, who showed their support by stuffing the ballot box and voting in four of their hometown Indians, watched more than any other market in the country with a 27.8 rating.
Ratings for other major cities were Boston (25.1), St. Louis (19.8), Hartford (17.3) and Providence, R.I. (16.6).
An estimated 37 million people and 11.9 million households watched at least part of the game, according to Fox.
Although the game didn't offer much excitement, the pregame festivities were quite a show.
The ceremony, in which Boston Hall of Famer Ted Williams was surrounded by current and former All-Stars before he threw out the first pitch, was the highest-rated pregame (10.5) since 1994.
ESPN's replay of the Americans' victory over China in the Women's World Cup final, which was aired opposite the All-Star game, posted a .9 cable rating and drew 658,000 households.
The All-Star game audience peaked from 9:30-10 p.m. EDT with a 14.1 rating and stayed above 12.0 until 11 p.m. Once most of the starters were replaced, the rating then dropped to a 9.9 from 11-11:30 p.m., and a 7.7 from 11:30-midnight.
ESPN's coverage of the Home Run Derby also slipped from a 7.7 cable rating last season to a 7.5 on Tuesday night. It was the second consecutive year that the cable network aired the competition live after showing it on tape the first five seasons.
The Home Run Derby was the third most-watched show ever on ESPN with 5.7 million viewers, trailing Mark McGwire's record-breaking 62nd home run game and the Chicago Cubs-San Francisco Giants one-game playoff.
The rating is the percentage of TV households in the United States tuned to a program, and each point represents 994,000 homes. Each cable point represents 766,000 homes on ESPN. The share is the percentage tuned to a program among televisions in use at the time.
