The last All-Star game that I or anyone of my generation gave a darn about was in 1983.

I was a sunburned and homesick 13-year-old crammed into a dining hall with about 75 other kids my age at basketball camp. The lights were off. Only a 30′ television illuminated the hall. And yet no one in this throng of pubescent boys was taking advantage of this golden opportunity to give a wedgie or hock a spitball in somebody’s eye.

Instead, all eyes were glued to the screen as Fred Lynn came to bat in the bottom of the third at Comiskey Park. The bases were loaded, the American League was up 2-1, and the immortal Atlee Hammaker was on the mound for the National League.

It’s important to note that, at this point, the American League had lost about 900 in a row to the National League. Since the majority of us were either Red Sox or Yankees fans, and since most of us were a year old when the AL last won an All-Star Game, we really, really wanted the AL to win.

Seriously, I can not overstate how badly all AL fans wanted a win in 1983. It was just a notch below the USA-USSR rivalry at that point.

So, when Freddie, a hero to many of us Sox fans in our younger days but at that time a California Angel, stepped into the batters box, you could cut the tension with a knife in that little dining hall. There was an electricity in the room that wouldn’t be matched until four years later at the closed-circuit Wrestlemania III show at the Portland Expo (Go ahead, laugh. But if you were there, you’d understand).

When Lynn smashed a pitch to right field for a grand slam, the place went bonkers. I mean, it was as if FOX had one of those bar-cams they used during last year’s playoffs in there. Pure bedlam.

Camp curfew prevented us from watching the full nine innings, but everyone in my cabin stayed awake well past lights out and waited to get a report on the outcome from our counselor When he told us the AL won, 13-3, we pumped our fists and went to sleep proud to be American League fans again.

It was never the same after that. Winning the game wasn’t nearly as important, and so watching it hasn’t been as important either.

Oh, we’ll still watch some of the game, mainly because there are no other sports going on and everything else is in repeats. And memories are still made on occasion – a young, beloved Roger Clemens dominating the NL in 1986, Bo Jackson’s homer in 1989, Ted Williams and other baseball legends at Fenway in 1999 (with the bonus of Pedro throwing out his shoulder), the ridiculous tie in 2002, an old, despised Clemens getting shelled last year.

But baseball’s All-Star Game is no longer “must see TV”, even for the hard-core fan. Sure, it’s still the best of all of the major sports’ All-Star games, but that’s like saying Ford was the best President in the 1970s or Trot Nixon is the smartest outfielder on the Red Sox.

The game has lost its luster. There are a number of reasons for this. Free agency is a big one, because it’s wiped out the rivalry between the two leagues. Players used to spend their entire careers in one league. They’re gypsies now. Three-fifths of the Red Sox starting rotation was in the National League last year. You can’t build up a hatred against the other league if you’ve showered with half of the players in that league.

Um, moving on.

Cable TV also has a lot to do with it from the fan’s perspective. When I was a kid, you made sure you tuned into the All-Star Game because, if you didn’t, you might not get a chance to see Pete Rose or Johnny Bench or Mike Schmidt the rest of the year.

There was a huge curiosity factor. It didn’t matter if you were wondering whether Fernando Valenzuela was as good as everyone said he was, or whether Kent Tekulve was as ugly as he looked on his baseball card or which color combination the Pittsburgh Pirates players were wearing. You were going to see something or someone you probably hadn’t seen before. All you have to do these days to see a Dontrelle Willis or a Miguel Cabrera in action is get a dish or tune in to ESPN or TBS when the Marlins are playing.

When you get right down to it, “the Mid-summer Classic” is just another game now. Bud Selig has tried to jazz it up with this idiotic home field advantage incentive, but Pedro Martinez is letting us know just how much that means to the players by, surprise, deciding to sit this one out. Even though the outcome could directly affect the Red Sox this post-season, I’m not going to be on the edge of my seat, biting my fingernails while Bob Wickman struggles to protect a one-run lead in the eighth.

The game still holds some appeal to young baseball fans. My son is 10 and he’s pretty excited about seeing four Red Sox in the starting lineup this Tuesday. Unfortunately, he probably won’t make it past the first couple of innings because the true commissioner of baseball, network television, won’t start the game until everyone in California has gotten out of the afternoon rush hour traffic.

At least he can watch Kenny Rogers getting booed during the introductions. He can put that in his own personal All-Star Game memory bank.

Randy Whitehouse is a staff writer. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]