There were plenty of local athletes competing in the spectacle that was the 2008 All Star Game, the last to be held at Yankee Stadium (and if you watched the game, you probably heard that last phrase in your sleep).  If you didn’t have any allegiances other than to Long Beach, you were probably rooting for the American League, which sported two Long Beachians, Poly alum Milton Bradley (who hammed it up with Josh Hamilton at the HR Derby on Monday night), and Dirtbag Evan Longoria.  Both were on the team as designated hitters, and Longoria was only named to the squad after baseball fans voted him on as part of MLB’s Final Vote, an online fan-vote to correct any All-Star roster oversights.  Longoria edged out another former Dirtbag, Jason Giambi, despite the endorsement of the National Moustache League.  This is true.  Bradley’s fellow Poly alum Chase Utley played second base for the National League.  

Bradley was walked once, and went 0-2, and other than impressing some by actually running out a ground out at first in an All Star Game, had an unremarkable evening.  Utley fared a little better, going 1-3, with the hit being a single into right in the sixth that advanced Hanley Ramirez to third.  Ramirez then scored to give the NL a 2-0 lead heading into the seventh.  Evan Longoria, though, made the biggest mark on the game for the Beach.  Longoria came in as the DH in the eighth, replacing Bradley.  When he came to the plate, the AL was down 3-2 in the bottom of the 8th, with Grady Sizemore on second.  Then Longoria hit a solid double down the left line, driving in the game-tying run and ultimately sending the game into extra innings.  Longoria later ground into a fielder’s choice in the bottom of the tenth, then struck out swinging in the twelfth and the fourteenth.

Nearly five hours after it ended, Michael Young popped up, allowing Justin Morneau to tag up and score the game winning run in the bottom of the fifteenth inning, giving the American League its 11th consecutive victory (including that ludicrous tie last year).  Still, he may have won the game, but with one swing of the bat, Evan Longoria tied it in the eighth and single-handedly forced the game into six extra innings.  Talk about power hitting.