As all star games go, there is nothing in professional sports to compare with baseball’s mid-season event.

The NFL Pro Bowl, coming right after the Super Bowl, does not attract the same interest among exhausted football fans and many of the players from the Super Bowl teams pass it up. The NHL and NBA all star games can be exciting but they don’t reach the level of major league baseball. Through the years, it has been my good fortune to be part of the media horde covering five all star games.

It was exciting to be at Veteran’s Stadium in 1976 when Mark Fidrych, who had a brief but exhilarating career with the Detroit Tigers, got the start for the American League. The National League won, 7-1, and the Reds’ George Foster was the most valuable player.

Two future South Jersey coaches played in the game. Greg Luzinski, who later coached baseball and football at Holy Cross High School, started for the National League. He is now the guru of barbeque at Citizen’s Bank Park. And Don Money, a former Phillie playing for the Milwaukee Brewers, played for the American League. Money would become head baseball coach at Sacred Heart.

The following year we followed the all star game to Yankee Stadium. Joe Morgan led off the game with a home run as the National League scored four in the first inning off Jim Palmer. Luzinski hit a two-run homer in that first inning. The National League won it, 7-5, and the Dodgers’ Don Sutton was the winning pitcher, allowing just one hit in three innings. Sparky Lyle, who has become a legendary manager in New Jersey professional baseball, pitched two innings and was tagged for two runs.

Five years later, in 1982, one of the most interesting parts of the all star experience was the trip to Montreal. Leaving from Philadelphia after covering a Phillies-Dodgers game, I sat across the aisle from Tom LaSorda and Fernando Valenzuela. The National League won the game at Stade Olympique, 4-1, and Cincinnati’s Dave Concepcion, who hit a two-run home run, was most valuable player.

In 1999, the highlight was watching the all stars gather around Ted Williams, who was driven to the mound in a golf cart to throw out the first ball. He had suffered two strokes and a broken hip but still made it to the game. The players hung around him so long, talking and posing for photos, that the start of the game was delayed.

When it started, another Red Sox star dominated. Pedro Martinez struck out Barry Larkin, Larry Walker and Sammy Sosa in the first inning. Then he fanned Mark McGwire and Jeff Bagwell in the second. Five strikeouts in two innings, earning him the MVP award as the American League won, 4-1. The Phillies’ Curt Schilling was the losing pitcher.

My last all star game, so far, was in 2000 at Turner Field in Atlanta. Derek Jeter was three-for-three and named the game’s MVP. Later that year, Jeter would be named World Series MVP, the only time one player has won both awards in the same season.

Those are my personal experiences with the all star game. This year we all watched the Yankee Stadium farewell, filled with returning Hall of Famers, on TV. The game went 15 innings and was decided with a sacrifice fly. Phillies fans were surely thrilled to watch J.D. Drew accept the award as most valuable player.

But the sad thing is that, had the game gone another inning or so, Drew and David Wright of the Mets might have become pitchers. In the all star game! That kind of thing happens in the late innings of a 19-2 game in late August between two non-contenders.. It does not happen in the all star game.

From a fan who loves baseball’s all star game, here are a few suggestions that should make sure that third basemen and right fielders don’t end up pitching in extra inning games.

Add two more pitchers to each all star roster and instruct each manager to secretly designate two of his pitchers as extra inning pitchers. In addition, add a third pitcher to each roster – a middle reliever or setup man. Those roles have become so important in today’s baseball that the best in each league should be named all stars.

Also, eliminate pitchers hitting, no matter where the game is played. It will be in St. Louis next year so the designated hitter would not normally be used. But with the greatest hitters in the game in one ballpark, who wants to see pitchers bat.

Finally, give some thought to permitting starting players to re-enter the game after the ninth inning. That could put the game’s best players in position to win the game in the late innings.

Just a few ideas that can insure that baseball fans in the future have the opportunity to develop special all star memories like the rest of us.