The Midsummer Classic goes that way, though. Before the American League started on its run of dominance — a run that stretches back into the 1980s — the National League had owned the game for two decades.

You can’t explain it. Neither league has it over the other in hitting or pitching prowess. It was only a couple of years ago that the National League filled its outfield with Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr. and Barry Bonds, as impressive a trio as has ever started together, and it made no difference.

Last year, Roger Clemens, who was on his way to his record seventh Cy Young Award, started for the Senior Circuit. He got hammered. Two years ago, Eric Gagne went a year with just one blown save. It was, of course, in the All-Star Game.

No matter how much you say the game means something, it’s still an exhibition. The players want to win, but it’s not the end of the world if they don’t; most aren’t going to the World Series anyway.

Besides, baseball decides virtually nothing with a single game. It’s a 162-game season, and no one result is that big of a deal. The only time things come down to one game is if the season ends tied or in the seventh game of a playoff series.

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The All-Star Game isn’t a season and it isn’t a series. It’s one game with mix-and-match lineups. Any pitcher can have a bad inning, even the best in the world. Any hitter, even a future hall of famer, can take the collar on any one night.

Pitchers who may be working on two days’ rest, come in for an inning or two. If they don’t have their best stuff, somebody else can’t have the home field in October. What does Selig want, for every manager to juggle his rotation so that every pitcher who may play in the All-Star Game comes into the break on full rest?

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I’ll give Selig credit for trying something different. It takes courage to do that. But we’ve seen it doesn’t work, that it’s not fair to the teams driving for the playoffs. So let him try something else different, like deciding home field the only way it should be decided – by regular-season wins.

It doesn’t take courage to do that, just intelligence. To do otherwise isn’t being innovative, it’s being stupid.