All Star Game

Because Mike Piazza has experienced the unfamiliar this season, the New York Met catcher has learned to expect the unexpected. He has been traded--twice--booed more at home than in his first five seasons combined and is perceived as the poster boy for the "greedy athlete," in his opinion. And Piazza ended the first half of his dizzying season by suffering injuries in consecutive games. The former Dodger franchise player has been battered, but Piazza insists he isn't beaten.

CLEVELAND — When Jordan Walden lost his closer job after giving up a walk-off home run to Tampa Bay's Brandon Allen on Thursday, he was not demoted to a seventh- or eighth-inning role. The right-hander whose 98-mph fastball earned him a trip to the All-Star game last season has been reduced, at least temporarily, to a mop-up guy until he can start throwing his slider for a strike. "Our preference is to get him into a low-profile inning and let him work on some stuff," Manager Mike Scioscia said.

The 2011 All-Star game, which has been awarded to Arizona, continues to be a flashpoint for activists opposed to that state's harsh new immigration law. Congressman Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) was among the first to call on Commissioner Bud Selig to move the game if the law is allowed to stand. And although both players and their union have also spoken out, Selig has so far remained silent. "Bud Selig should show some leadership instead of waiting for things to happen around him. Baseball's silence on this has been deafening," said Doug Gordon , a vice president at Fenton Communications, the nation's largest public-interest communications firm, which last week collected 50,000 signatures on a petition asking Selig to relocate next summer's exhibition.

NEW YORK — It might be curtains for the Pro Bowl. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is looking into suspending the annual all-star game in 2013 because of quality-of-play concerns, according to an ESPN report. League spokesman Greg Aiello said no determination has been made about the future of the game, which is played in Honolulu. Even though viewership dropped 8.1% in January, the Pro Bowl still was the highest-rated sports program of the weekend before the Super Bowl. This year, for the first time, the league staged a live awards show the night before the Super Bowl, and there's a chance that program could supplant the Pro Bowl.

Bo Jackson led off the 1989 All-Star game at Anaheim Stadium with a 448-foot home run, a majestic moment in the history of the Midsummer Classic. A look at some others: 1933: It's the first All-Star game, and Babe Ruth hits the first home run. 1934: Carl Hubbell strikes out Hall of Famers Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin in order. 1949: Jackie Robinson, Don Newcombe, Roy Campanella and Larry Doby break the All-Star game color barrier. 1955: Stan Musial hits a walk-off home run — not that the term had been invented yet — as the NL erases a 5-0 deficit and wins, 6-5. 1970: Pete Rose knocks over Ray Fosse to score the winning run, separating Fosse's shoulder.

Ever since baseball decided that its All-Star game would count for something — specifically, home-field advantage in the World Series — there has been an uneasy balance between playing to win and trying to ensure every player gets into the game. The latest changes, announced Wednesday, take effect with this year's All-Star game in Anaheim: 1. No more pleading with teams not to use their best starting pitcher on the Sunday before the All-Star game. If a pitcher selected for the All-Star game starts that Sunday, he will be ineligible and will be replaced on the All-Star roster.

So many sluggers, no one to lead off. But Bo could run. That was his winter job in Los Angeles, for the NFL's Raiders. Bo Jackson played in his one and only baseball All-Star game in 1989, in Anaheim. Tony La Russa, the American League manager, told Jackson he would bat first for the home team. "I was shocked," Jackson said. "I was just happy to be in the company of so many great athletes. "When he said I was leading off, that meant one thing to me: I had to get my stuff in gear a little earlier than I had planned to."

Help! Er, welcome to Dallas, as the NBA's annual showcase comes to Cowboys Stadium, where 90,000, most of whom came for the parties, are expected to get a chance to see the biggest All-Star game since . . . Last year? It's hard to tell because I can't remember back that far. Oh, yeah, that was Phoenix, where Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, playing on the same team for -- presumably -- the last time, just happened to be co-MVPs! You may have noticed that if the entire All-Star genre isn't dead, it's getting stiff fast with even the NFL's Pro Bowl now on cable.

All the will-he-or-won't-he chatter was rendered moot Thursday when the NBA announced that Kobe Bryant would not play in the All-Star game because of a sprained left ankle. The Lakers guard will be replaced by Dallas veteran Jason Kidd, further diminishing the appeal of a weekend in which Southern California fans had hoped Bryant would lead the West All-Stars to victory and Blake Griffin would dunk on some second-year player's head. Well, there's always Lakers guard Shannon Brown competing in the dunk contest.

Some things never change. Presidents appearing at the national pastime's All-Star game, muggy-warm baseball nights in St. Louis and, of course, the American League winning. The AL's unbeaten string reached 13 games Tuesday night -- giving the league home-field advantage again in the World Series, for the seventh straight year -- with a 4-3 victory over the National League in front of a crowd of 46,760 at Busch Stadium.

Lakers tonight VS. OKLAHOMA CITY When: 7:30. Where: Staples Center. On the air: TV: TNT; Radio: 710, 1330. Records: Lakers 31-19, Thunder 38-12. Record vs. Thunder: 0-1. Update: The Lakers lost to the Thunder, 100-85, in their last game before the All-Star break. Andrew Bynum had 14 points on five-for-15 shooting and Kobe Bryant had 24 points on seven-for-24 shooting. The Lakers had won 10 consecutive home games against the Thunder franchise until a 120-106 loss last April at Staples Center.

These have been silent nights with no lights in Kobe Bryant's dwelling, the darkness surrounding him as he pushes through a whiplash injury and recovers from a concussion and broken nose. But he's plenty lively on the court, managing to avoid the glare of hyperbole before Sunday's game against the Miami Heat. His revenge came not in a retaliatory foul against Dwyane Wade but in his own stat line and on the scoreboard. The Lakers beat Miami, 93-83, Bryant blowing through the 30-point barrier for a third consecutive game since Wade's hard foul in the All-Star game caused his nasal fracture and concussion.

Kobe Bryant might have set the NBA All-Star game career scoring record on Sunday but it was Kevin Durant who was the difference-maker as the West won the annual showcase, 152-149, over the East. The East crawled back from a  huge deficit and got within a point with less than a minute to play but a put-back slam by Blake Griffin gave the West a three0point lead. Dwyane Wade followed by making a pair of free throws with 22.8 seconds left. Bryant was fouled on the inbounds and made one of two free throws.

Kobe Bryant still has a few years before he's ready to own a team in the NBA but he still has some thoughts about how a team should be run. He sees the emergence of New York Knicks superstar-in-waiting Jeremy Lin as something that shouldn't have been a surprise. "The biggest thing to me is how everybody missed that," Bryant said. "They would all be fired if I was owning a team. "I hear this stuff about how he came out of nowhere and I think it's a load of crap.

Reporting from Orlando, Fla. -- Certainly there was no alarm when Kobe Bryant skipped Friday's mandatory media session because he was "ill. " No further explanation was offered and probably none was needed. Bryant met with the media for nine minutes on Saturday and quickly dismissed Friday's sickness. "I feel all right," Bryant said. "Something I ate. " And that was the total time spent on Bryant's illness. But, perhaps, he was telling the back story later in the interview.

Reporting from Orlando, Fla. -- Try as one might to build a scenario of things that just don't go well together, no one is buying it this time. This is less like cats and dogs and more like bacon and eggs. Yes, Lakers and Clippers can get along and enjoy the experience. Sunday, Los Angeles has four-fifths of the Western Conference starting lineup in the NBA All-Star game, an event of grandiose proportions and minuscule importance. The only real surprise is that each team has two starters.

A swing and a miss Re "Step up to the plate," Editorial, May 15 The Times' editorial asking Major League Baseball to move the 2011 All-Star game from Phoenix has some interesting analogies but forgets some important facts. The game of baseball has rules that must be followed or the entire game descends into chaos. There are umpires to enforce those rules, and not agreeing with the rules will get you removed from the game. Illegal immigrants want to play the game with their own rules and are now angry at the umpire because the rules are being enforced.

It's not a Most Valuable Player game. It's not a Best Statistical Player game. This hootenanny in Anaheim next week, it's an All-Star game, which means the only requirement is that participants are stars . Whose appearance will make you stop, drop and stare? Who will make you shout to a neighbor or phone a friend? Of all the hundreds of baseball players who have paraded across the landscape this season, who will drawn the most stares under the brightest of lights? Forget the studs, who are the stars?

Reporting from Orlando, Fla. -- Life as a supernova has its ups and downs. On Thursday, Jeremy Lin was one for 11 from the field and had only three assists in the New York Knicks' loss to the Eastern Conference-leading Miami Heat. The New York press dubbed his performance as "Linvisible" and "Linept. " But on Friday, there was Lin getting his very own media availability, all by himself, at the All-Star game. Commissioner David Stern is the only other person who will get the solo treatment.

Reggie Miller will be a TNT analyst alongside Marv Albert and Steve Kerr for the NBA All-Star game next Sunday in Orlando, Fla., with the network airing exclusive coverage of All-Star weekend starting Thursday. The former UCLA star knows the scene well, having played in five All-Star games during a distinguished NBA career (1987-2005) spent exclusively with the Indiana Pacers. Raised in Riverside and currently residing in Los Angeles, Miller, 46, scored more than 25,000 points and made more than 2,500 three-pointers during a career that included several memorable playoff battles against the New York Knicks and a trip to the 2000 NBA Finals against the champion Lakers.