For Mussina, no time to get sentimental

Dustin Pedroia removed any suspense about making his first All-Star team, getting voted in by the fans to start at second. (Ray Stubblebine/Reuters)

NEW YORK - There'll never be a system that will please everyone. Can we agree on that?

There'll always be a guy left off the All-Star team who should have made it (Mike Mussina?) and a guy who gets on who should have been left off (Jason Varitek?).

American League manager Terry Francona probably said it best when he indicated that fans voted for the players they'd like to see start the game, and players voted for those they feel deserved to be on the team. Francona picked six players, the majority chosen to make sure there was one representative from each team (a rule that could spark its own debate).

In the Big Apple, Mussina was the sentimental choice of the fans, his Yankees teammates, and manager Joe Girardi. He's got 11 wins, quite a feat for someone the majority of baseball people thought was done after being pulled from the rotation last year. He's nearly 40 years old, with 261 wins, and pitching at Yankee Stadium would have been pretty neat.

Francona, the Red Sox skipper, made a point to mention how painful it was to omit his third baseman, Mike Lowell, and he also mentioned that leaving Mussina off caused him great pause and was a matter of debate. Was there a way to get Mussina on the team? After the players voted for eight pitchers (five starters and three relievers), Francona got to round out his pitching staff of 12 with four more, and also got to add two position players.

Francona tabbed Orioles reliever George Sherrill, Royals reliever Joakim Soria, Oakland starter Justin Duchscherer, and Tigers infielder Carlos Guillen as the sole representatives for those teams. All good, solid choices that make sense. His other choices were Minnesota reliever Joe Nathan, who has had an excellent season with 25 saves, and Tampa Bay catcher Dioner Navarro.

Could Nathan have been sacrificed for Mussina? Well, that was one of the tough choices Francona was forced to make.

Francona had a breakdown of six starters and six relievers and indicated if he started searching for ways to get Mussina on the team he would have been short-changing someone who really deserved the nod, such as Nathan. Although New Yorkers will take Francona to task for the pick, it was made objectively and eschewed sentimentality.

In the good old days, when the rosters were made up far differently, sentimental choices normally were made. Carl Yastrzemski, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Cal Ripken Jr., and on and on were added to All-Star teams toward the end of their careers.

While Mussina isn't in that category of players (his Hall of Fame credentials remain borderline), he was this year's version of that guy.

"I'm a little disappointed, sure. It would have been fun, especially being here," said Mussina, who said he first learned of the news when his kids were watching the selection show at home. "When you think of the guys who didn't get to go, like Daisuke [Matsuzaka] and Gavin Floyd. [Kyle] Lohse isn't going in the other league.

"I don't think I could have done anything else. If someone told me at the break I was going to be 11-6 with a [3.64] ERA . . . no matter what else has gone on, I'd have thought I was great. I didn't go to spring training with the goal of making the All-Star team. It's been a long time [1999], and it's going to stay that way."

Asked whether he thought the game being at Yankee Stadium should have factored in the decision-making, Mussina said, "It's not a factor and it shouldn't have been. There are a lot of guys going for the first time. They deserve it. They've earned it. It's great for them.

"Like I've said, you could pick a whole other team of guys who didn't make it. They have positions for 12 pitchers and they divvy it up the way they have to, I guess. You're never going to have enough spots for everybody. You're just not."

There was no outrage from Mussina, who had kidded he was either taking his kids to the All-Star Game or to a county fair. He'll go to the county fair.

There is no doubt Tigers manager Jim Leyland made an impassioned plea for Guillen, one of his favorite players ever. Francona said Tigers Placido Polanco and Curtis Granderson were considered (and Magglio Ordonez would have been another worthy candidate), but Guillen got the nod because he plays multiple positions - first base, third, shortstop, and left field.

"I had a good conversation with Jim," Francona said. "He was tremendous. I thought we needed to talk about Polanco and Granderson and some of our decisions had to take into account flexibility and versatility.

"Polanco is a really good player and it needs to be reflected that I said that. Curtis Granderson is going to make a lot of All-Star teams."

There were others who were left off that had a case. Jermaine Dye, Jose Guillen, Jason Giambi, Evan Longoria, and Brian Roberts all will be eligible to be added as the final player on the AL squad in the Internet vote.

While the system generally produced a deserving and exciting AL All-Star team, the one suggestion I've heard over the years that makes sense is there should be one or two extra roster spots reserved for players who would be added for historical or sentimental reasons.

This year, that player would have been Mussina.

Nick Cafardo can be reached at cafardo@globe.com.