Somewhere in the back of every fan’s mind is a list of baseball injustices. For Cubs fans it’s that Ron Santo isn’t yet in the Hall of Fame, for Pirate’s fans it’s that Roberto Clemente wasn’t named the NL MVP in 1960. There’s an argument on the net about whether Tim Raines, one of baseball’s great on base players should be in the hall, whether Jeffrey Maier or Steve Bartman should have been called for interference, whether Satchell Paige was justified in being irritated that Branch Rickey chose Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier. But in terms of pure injustice, few can top the unstated but embarrassing slight suffered by Texas Rangers fans who saw perhaps the game’s best second baseman (who came up as a shortstop in ’04) held out of the all star game. Even Boston Red Sox fans were upset.

It’s not any easier to talk about the Kinsler slight now that the game is over. Not only is Kinsler a possible AL MVP, the American League went into the St. Louis “Midsummer Classic” with (count ‘em) one second baseman – the well-deserving Aaron Hill (who’s an institution on my list of baseball’s most underrated players). Hill became a starter after Dustin Pedroia (here he is, in case you’ve forgotten) decided to spend time with his wife, who’s enduring a difficult pregnancy. To take Pedroia’s place, Hill was made a starter and Tampa Bay Ray Carlos Pena was named to the team. The naming of Pena meant that the AL might have fielded an all-Tampa Bay infield, particularly after Ray’s coach Joe Maddon named hometown favorite Ben Zobrist as a possible second baseman. Zobrist is a hell of a hitter, but Tampa Bay fans look at him as a “super-uilityman” — and he’s played nearly half his games in the outfield and shortstop. And since when does a “super-utility-man” get named to the all star game? Still, there was a chance that Kinsler might appear after Evan Longoria decided not to play, the result of an infection his throwing hand. But AL manager Joe Maddon picked Angels’ third baseman Chone Figgins to take Longoria’s place. Who knows, maybe there’s something about Kinsler that Maddon doesn’t like, but it certainly can’t be his qualifications: he’s hitting .337 with 14 home runs, 58 RBIs, 84 runs and 23 stolen bases — better numbers than any other AL player at the position. Not bad for a guy who finished second in fan voting and got to spend the all star break at a Starbucks in Dallas.

The slight of Ian Kinsler has rightly angered Ranger fans, but this isn’t the first time that a great player and potential MVP was overlooked in “the Midsummer Classic.” In 1954, feared Cubs hitter Hank Sauer was given three days off during the all star break, despite the fact that he was having a phenomenal year. Baseball’s older veterans still talk about the Sauer slight, noting that he’d won the rain-shortened 1952 classic with a home run — a year in which he’d led the league in homers and RBIs — and was one of the game’s most-feared hitters. In 1954, they note, he was having a career year and single-handedly carrying a bad team. Sauer (nicknamed “the Honker” for his big nose) was hardly a defensive whiz (he once misplayed a fly ball during a night game and explained that “I lost it in the moon”) and might have been the slowest outfielder in the National League. But his Wrigley Field blasts were the stuff of baseball lore and Cubs fans loved him: whenever he hit a homer, Cubs fans in the rightfield bleachers showered him with packets of tobacco. On Hank Sauer Day, a celebration of his career, there was so much tobacco on the field that it took five wheelbarrows to remove it. ”I loved playing in Wrigley Field,” Sauer remembered during his retirement. “Fans would throw tobacco to me. What I couldn’t put in my pocket, I’d store in the vines. I supplied the whole club with tobacco.”

The Sauer injustice remained unmentioned by the Cubs outfielder throughout his career and into his retirement. When asked about it he dismissed it with a shrug, adding that a lot of people in the league that year were more focused on Chicago’s new rookie phenom — shortstop Ernie Banks. Then too, as Sauer himself would have admitted, he hardly deserved to be on the starting nine in ’54. The NL outfield was packed: with Stan Musial, Duke Snyder and Jackie Robinson, a veritable murderers’ row, named as the league starters. But that Sauer should have been on the team is not in question. The same holds true for Kinsler.

Complaints about the Nats defense are now not only emanating from the broadcast booth, but are also coming from the clubhouse. After last night’s game reliever Joe Beimel, referring to a miss-played pop up by first baseman Nick Johnson, said “obviously it’s a play that has to be made. . . anybody with a pair of eyes can see that.” This can only spell trouble for the Nats. Once the grumbling starts among teammates, and becomes public, all hell is likely to break loose.  (Witness the Yanks and Red Sox in the ’70s) Maybe the all-star break will be a God-send for the team: it’ll give everyone a few days to cool off.  Dissing your starting first baseman (BA .299) to the Post is not a way to win friends and influence people.

But Mr. Acta may be whistling past the graveyard. After last night’s blown game he put the blame for the loss on the bullpen, saying the “let us down again,” but also noted that “overall I feel good.” Really? He may be the only one who does. Maybe he’s found peace with the fact that most of the time he’d can control the disasters on the field. 

Diamond Nuggets

Six, count ‘em, six: as in shutouts last night. I can’t remember the last time I saw that. And of course the gem of the night was the no-hitter by Giants lefty Jonathan Sanchez. A lot of fans had never even heard of him and with a 2-8 record going into the game there probably was no reason to. He only got the nod because future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson has a shoulder injury. But he came up big with his dad watching from the stands. A great story. Not far behind Sanchez’s feat was that of Brian Bannister of the Royals who three-hit the Red Sox only to lose 1 – 0. A pitchers duel in the AL?!! I didn’t think that happened any more.

Read the Stats: The fairly weak-hitting (.261) left fielder for the Red Sox, Jason Bay, leads the AL in RBIs with 72. Not a lot of hits, but he makes them count. He also has 20 dingers and will be in the All-Start game this week. Meanwhile, knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, who leads the AL in wins with 11, is the oldest first-time All-Star since Satchell Paige earned the nod to the summer classic in 1952 — when he was 46.

Tejada on Fire: Houston SS Miguel Tejada is lighting it up down south this year with a .330 BA, 114 hits (he has the NL lead in that catagory) and 29 doubles (also a league leader). The NL is so flush with good hitting that his .330 mark doesn’t even make the top ten list in the league. He’d be third in that category in the AL. 

No Love: With teammates like the aforementioned Randy Johnson and righty stud Tim Lincecum, Giant’s pitcher Matt Cain rarely gets mentioned in the national media. But he’s no secret in San Francisco. He’s tied for most wins in the NL (10) with Lincecum.

Zimmerman is an All Star: Scott Olsen scorched the Braves on Sunday and the Washington Nationals walked away with their second win in a row. Olsen nearly completed the game before giving up a home run to Braves’ centerfielder Nate McLouth and being relieved by Mike MacDougal. The win sealed the growing sense that the Nats have turned some kind of corner, their play evidence that interim GM Mike Rizzo’s plan for the team is beginning to yield results. During the post-game, MASN analyst Ray Knight seemed to suggest that at least part of the reason for the turnaround was the different mix in the clubhouse — a hint perhaps that it was not only the addition of Nyjer Morgan that was making the difference, but the subtraction of others (including Elijah Dukes) that was changing the way the team approaches games. Knight’s question, to guest Josh Willingham, was laden with not-so-subtle implications.

But Willingham either didn’t understand the question, or purposely ducked it: his answer was worthy of any cliche from the mouth of Crash Davis — teams that play good defense and pitch well win, he said, and that tends to put everyone in a good mood. Knight laughed and told the new rightfielder to keep hitting. Even so, Knight’s comment gave voice to rumors that the team did not like Dukes’s attitude and that the troubled centerfielder would not be returning to the big club anytime soon, if ever. With Dukes gone, Knight implied, the Nats clubhouse was a happier place, the team more capable of focusing on how to win games. And so the process of what The Nationals Enquirer calls “de-Bowdenization” continues. It seems it is now only a matter of time before Rizzo rids the team of the rest of Bowden’s experiments, as well as his penchant for signing former Cincinnati Reds has-beens. That means that Elijah Dukes is being offered to other teams — along with Austin Kearns, who seems to now have taken a permanent position on the Nats’ bench.

The Nats win came on the same day that third sacker Ryan Zimmerman was named to the MLB All Star team, the result of a vote of his fellow players and MLB managers and coaches. “This won’t be the last time we’ll see him as an all star,” TBS commentator Cal Ripken noted during the all star selection show. Zimmerman, the face of the franchise, will be making his first all star appearance, despite his fall-off in production over the last month. Major League Baseball also included Cristian Guzman among five finalists for fan votes for inclusion on the final squad. For whatever reason, Guzman seemed less than thrilled with the prospect of playing in St. Louis. “I don’t care if I go or not go,” he told Washington Post reporter Chico Harlan. “I’ve gone twice already. I want to take my three days off and have a very good second half.” Guzman is in the mix for the final all star spot with Dodger Matt Kemp, D-Back Mark Reynolds, the Giants’ Pablo Sandoval and Phillie Shane Victorino.