CORRECTION

A sports column by Caulton Tudor on Tuesday incorrectly stated that Boston player Jason Varitek was selected for the American League all-star team by his manager, Terry Francona. Varitek was picked by fellow players. Two other players mentioned in the column -- Mike Lowell and Derrek Lee -- are not listed among the Internet vote finalists for the game by Major League Baseball's Web site.

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It's not too late to stack the rosters even more in favor of the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs for next Tuesday's Major League Baseball All-Star Game. One berth on each side is still up for grabs via an Internet vote that's under way this week. Anyone care to bet against the Cubs' Derrek Lee filling the National League spot and Boston's Mike Lowell grabbing a seat in the American League dugout?

Heck, why not? A travesty of this magnitude should have no limit, right?

With seven players anointed from each team, the sport's two primary cult followings so dominated the fans' voting and managerial reserves picks that Yankee Stadium might as well be the host site for a Cubs vs. Red Sox exhibition game. It was the sort of ballot-box stuffing that two long-gone mayors -- Richard Daley, The First (Chicago) and John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald (Boston) -- might have admired.

My favorite voting outcome was the selection of Boston's David Ortiz as the American League's designated hitter. He's a terrific hitter, sure. He's also sidelined by a wrist injury and was batting about .250 through 54 games when he was up and -- er, ah -- running. In Ortiz's absence, the American League's re-designated hitter will be Milton Bradley of Texas, hereafter to be known as "Li'l Pappi."

Then, there's Boston catcher Jason Varitek. With a batting average of roughly .219, he's on the AL roster. Terry Francona's devotion to his own player is admirable, but a .219 batting average should get a guy a couple of days off and not an All-Star roster spot in the waning days of this version of Yankee Stadium, of all places.

That observation, by the way, is not from a Yankees fan. It's from from a guy who, as a Southern kid in the '50s, literally prayed for the Brooklyn Dodgers to find a way just once -- just one crazy time -- to beat the Yankees. (Here's to youse Bums, Sandy Amoros, Roy Campanella and Johnny Podres.)

That was in 1955. The Cubs haven't had an answered prayer since Frank Chance -- as in Tinker to Evers to Chance -- was the team's manager and Admiral Peary announced that he had discovered the North Pole and the Cubs were playing ball in what was known then as Weeghman Park. It's been a long time since 1909.

Cubbie-kind has been looking for diversions since, including a suffocating 1918 Series loss to a Red Sox team that had Babe Ruth in the days when he was Boston's best hitter and best pitcher.

Given the All-Star vote, those long-suffering Cubs fans have found a place to vent their frustration. Present them with the slightest glimmer of hope -- rookie catcher Geovany Soto is the latest -- and you'll get a voting response normally associated with "American Idol."

In one way, it's all as harmless as fun and games. The fans vote and the selected players reap the rewards. But on another front, the All-Star Game stakes are higher than anyone could have imagined when the game was originated in 1933. Now that the winning league gets the home-field advantage in the World Series, the All-Star Game outcome actually means something.

That fact, alone, is reason enough for team owners to reconsider the voting process. It's all fine and good that the fans have some say-so, but this much say-so is too much. A better idea would be to limit the fans' vote to 50 percent of the selection equation. The players -- not the managers -- should then have equal input. The result would be squads with a better balance of popularity and production. It would also add to the importance of being selected.

Finally, make the game a real game -- not a revolving door of names, numbers and uniform colors that's more about getting players on the field than crossing home plate. Odds are, the AL will win the game no matter what. But at least make the winning side actually earn the right to host the first World Series game.