Austin Riley’s (Braves, left) kneeling throw to kneeling scooper Pete Alonso (Mets, right) ended the bottom of the All-Star Game eighth with a double play . . . (MLB.com photo) . . .

The best thing about Tuesday night’s All-Star Game? Easy. That snappy eighth inning-ending double play into which Athletics outfielder Brent Rooker hit. He shot one up the third base line to Braves third baseman Austin Riley, who picked and threw on one knee across to Mets first baseman Pete Alonso, who scooped on one knee to nail two outs for the price of one, doubling Blue Jays second baseman Whit Merrifield up.

That play preserved what proved the National League’s 3-2 win over the American League in Seattle’s T-Mobile Park. They got the second and third runs in the top of that eighth, when Elias Díaz (Rockies) pinch hit for Jorge Soler (Marlins) with Nick Castellanos (Phillies) aboard after a nine-pitch leadoff walk and nobody out. Díaz sent Orioles righthander Félix Bautista’s 2-2 splitter off a bullpen sidewall, then off an overhang into the left field seats.

It meant the first NL All-Star win since 2012. It also meant Díaz becoming the Rockies’s first-ever All-Star Game Most Valuable Player award winner. Otherwise? It meant almost nothing. Because the worst thing about this year’s All-Scar Game was . . . just about everything else.

Mr. Blackwell, call your office. All-Star Game specific threads have been part of it for long enough. They began ugly and devolved to further states of revulsivity. But Tuesday night took the Ignoble Prize for Extinguished Haberdashery. The only uniforms uglier than this year’s All-Star silks are those hideous City Connect uniforms worn now and then during regular season games. Both should be done away with. Post haste. Let the All-Stars wear their regular team uniforms once again.

Who are those guys? They sort of anticipated long ovations for the hometown Mariners’ All-Star representatives. But they didn’t anticipate they’d be longer than usual. To the point where two Rays All-Stars—shortstop Wander Franco, pitcher Shane McLanahan—weren’t even introduced, when they poured in from center field among all other All-Stars. (Rays third baseman Yandy Díaz, an All-Star starter, did get introduced properly. But still.)

Maybe the two Rays jumped the gun trotting in while the ovation continued, but they should have been announced regardless.

While I’m at it, what was with that nonsense about bringing the All-Stars in from center field instead of having them come out of the dugouts to line up on the opposite base lines? Some traditions do deserve preservation. Not all, but some. What’s next—running the World Series combatants’ members in from the bullpens? (Oops! Don’t give the bastards any more bright ideas!)

Down with the mikes! In-game miking of players has always been ridiculous. But on Tuesday night it went from ridiculous to revolting. When Rangers pitcher Nathan Eovaldi took the mound miked up, the poor guy got into trouble on the mound almost at once. He had to pitch his way out of a two-on, one-out jam in the second inning. He sounded about as thrilled to talk while working his escape act as a schoolboy ordered to explain why he put a girl’s phone number on the boys’ room wall.

What’s the meaning of this? We’ve got regular-season interleague play all year long now. The National League All-Stars broke a ten-season losing streak? Forgive me if hold my applause. So long as the entire season is full of interleague play, the All-Star Game means nothing. Wasn’t it bad enough during those years when the outcome of the All-Star Game determined home field advantage for the World Series?

The road to making the All-Star Game mean something once more is eliminating regular-season interleague play altogether.

. . . saving the lead (and, ultimately, the game) Elias Díaz gave the NL with his two-run homer in the top of the eighth. (And, yes, the All-Star uniforms get uglier every year. Enough!) (AP Photo.)

Tamper bay. Sure it was cute to hear the T-Mobile Park crowd chanting for Angels unicorn star Shohei Ohtani to come to Seattle as a free agent. The problem is, he isn’t a free agent yet. He still has a second half to play for the Angels. I’ll guarantee you that if any team decided to break into a “Come to us!” chant toward Ohtani, they’d be hauled before baseball’s government and disciplined for tampering.

I get practically every fan base in baseball wanting Ohtani in their teams’ fatigues starting next year. If they don’t, they should be questioned by grand juries. But they really should have held their tongues on that one no matter how deeply you think the All-Scar Game has been reduced to farce. Lucky for them the commissioner can’t fine the Mariners for their fans’ tamper chants. (Not unless someone can prove the Mariners put their fans up to it, anyway.)

Crash cart alert. Cardiac Craig Kimbrel (Phillies) was sent out to pitch the ninth. With a one-run lead. The National League should have put the crash carts on double red alert, entrusting a one-run lead to the guy whose six 2018 postseason saves with a 5.90 ERA/6.74 fielding-independent pitching still felt like defeats. The guy who has a lifetime 4.13 ERA/4.84 FIP in postseason play.

Kimbrel got the first two outs (a fly to right, a strikeout), then issued back-to-back walks (six and seven pitches off an even count and a 1-2 count, respectively) before he finally struck Jose Ramirez (Guardians) out—after opening 0-2 but lapsing to 2-2—to end the game. Making the ninth that kind of interesting should not be what the Phillies have to look forward to if they reach the coming postseason.

Sales pitch. How bad is the sorry state of the Athletics and their ten-thumbed owner John Fisher’s shameless moves while trying and failing to extort Oakland but discovering Nevada politicians have cactus juice for brains? It’s this bad—when the T-Mobile crowd wasn’t chanting for Ohtani to cast his free agency eyes upon Seattle, they were chanting “Sell the team!” when Rooker whacked a ground rule double in the fifth.

Can you think of any other All-Star ballpark crowd chanting against another team’s owner in the past? Not even George Steinbrenner’s worst 1980-91 antics inspired that. That’s more on Fisher, of course, but it’s still sad to think that a team reduced to cinder and ashes with malice aforethought captured an All-Star Game crowd’s attention almost equal to the attention they might have paid the game itself.