Tunstall: Jason Giambi Tops All-Star Selection Surprises
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the votes are in for this year's All-Star baseball game, a few surprises, as there are every year. The game will be held next Tuesday night, here in Atlanta, at Turner Field. Brooke Tunstall is a sports writer for "The Washington Times." He is live from New York today with more on the big game. Good morning to you, Brooke.</s>BROOKE TUNSTALL, "WASHINGTON TIMES": Good morning. Thanks for having me.</s>HEMMER: No problem, appreciate you stopping by. Let's talk about the new wrinkle this year: Internet voting. Was baseball -- the baseball gods happy about how it went?</s>TUNSTALL: I think anything that increases fan awareness and fan involvement in the game the baseball gods, Bud Selig and his people are going to be happy with. They want to the Internet voting a couple of years ago. They changed it a little bit this year after a little bit of a controversy.</s>HEMMER: But the new wrinkle this year was that a fan could vote up to 25 fans.</s>TUNSTALL: Exactly.</s>HEMMER: How did baseball arrive at that number?</s>TUNSTALL: Well, 25 seems sort of an arbitrary figure. I am not quite sure how they came to do that. It seemed like a happy compromise between letting people vote as many times as they wanted to, and not dissuading them from continuing to come back. And obviously, as we touched on a second ago, you don't want to do anything that discourages interest in the game. It sort of came about last year, you had a couple of markets where radio stations came on and said: Get on the Internet and vote for player X, and it sort of skewered the voting.</s>HEMMER: Nomar Garciaparra figured prominently in that.</s>TUNSTALL: Yes, that is a good example of that.</s>HEMMER: Let's move on now to the starters announced yesterday. Any big surprises in here? It appears every year there are surprises, what struck you?</s>TUNSTALL: Jason Giambi being voted in, not that he didn't merit it, but players that are playing in Oakland sort of play in relative obscurity. He forget almost that they are out there. Their games, being on the West Coat, start late. Oakland doesn't draw very well, they are not a very glamorous team, and he is not a very glamorous player. But he has got great numbers, and the A's did a really good job promoting him within their market to encourage their fans to vote within the framework of the All-Star voting.</s>HEMMER: We are going to get the reserves later today, also going to get the starting pitchers. Who do you guess here?</s>TUNSTALL: The starting pitchers? Ordinary in the American League, it would be Pedro, no questions asked. But Pedro is on the DL. He went on the DL not wanting to go on. They sort of had to talk him into going on. And while you can play if you are on the DL in an All-Star game, I don't think they are going to let him. They are not going to risk the rest of the season for a couple of innings in the All-Star game. Therefore, I think David Wells, who has got 13 wins, is going to be the starter. And then, in the National League, Randy Johnson, no questions asked.</s>HEMMER: Some videotape here, Randy Johnson here doing what he does best.</s>TUNSTALL: Yes, he is one of the best pitchers in baseball right now, and he continues to get better. And the guys in the National League don't seem to have an answer to him.</s>HEMMER: Love the National League outfield: Ken Griffey, Jr., Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa; pretty good trio there. It appears every year somebody gets ripped off. We will find out later who, indeed, this year it will be. And we will see you next Tuesday here in Atlanta, all right?</s>TUNSTALL: Thanks for having me.</s>HEMMER: All right, Brooke Tunstall, "Washington Times," live from our bureau in New York.