Baseball’s All-Star game is a little bit of a sham — more of a mid-season jolly for the players and league executives than a serious measure of how the game’s best proponents measure up against each other.

Baseball’s All-Star game is a little bit of a sham — more of a mid-season jolly for the players and league executives than a serious measure of how the game’s best proponents measure up against each other.

The 2012 World Series concluded with an 89-mph fastball over the middle of the plate, the sort of pitch that ends up over outfield fences as often as it does in catcher’s mitts.

ROOKIE Miguel Cabrera homered and drove in four runs and Josh Beckett tossed four superb innings in relief as the Florida Marlins posted a 9-6 triumph over the Chicago Cubs to qualify for baseball’s World Series.