LAS VEGAS — For the first 53 outs of Tuesday night's All-Star Game, it was anything but a midsummer classic.

   The American League looked to be coasting to a 5-2 victory, and the vast majority of bettors with action on the game were just waiting for the final out to be recorded. The AL, despite being the road team at AT&T Park in San Francisco, had opened as a -125 favorite (risk $1.25 for every $1 you want to profit) and bettors had jumped all over that seemingly cheap price on the league that had won the last nine MLB All-Star Games. The line was driven to at least -130 at just about every sports books in Las Vegas and as high as -145 at the MGM Mirage properties, and it looked like an easy winner.
   The opening total on the game was 10 runs, and most bettors were on the under as the line dropped to 9 1/2 at about half the books in town, including the Las Vegas Hilton, Wynn, Palms and Stratosphere. That looked like even more of a foregone conclusion as the game was 1-0 through the first four innings and 2-1 through the first five (note: the betting total for the first five innings was 5 1/2 runs) with Ichiro Suzuki's inside-the-park homer being the only truly exciting moment. Conventional over-the-fence homers by Carl Crawford and Victor Martinez held the AL extend the lead to 5-2, and Seattle closer J.J. Putz retired the first two batters he faced in the bottom of the night to put the AL one out away from yet another victory.
   It was the type of game where the majority of viewers at the end were probably gamblers because there wasn't many other reasons for regular fans to keep watching the snoozefest.

   But that's when the fun began.
   Dmitri Young hit a grounder to deep second that Brian Roberts couldn't handle, and it was ruled a hit. Then, Alfonso Soriano homered to right to make the score 5-4. Under bettors had to be going nuts, especially after Putz walked J.J. Hardy and Francisco Rodriguez relieved Putz and proceeded to walk Derrick Lee and Orlando Hudson to load the bases, because any run by the NL would have put the game on 10, and the only way the under bettors could have salvaged a push was for the game to end in a tie like it did in 2002. Of course, that wasn't going to happen with the All-Star game now determining home-field advantage in the World Series, so under bettors were probably counting the ways that could doom their bet (hit, walk, hits batsman, error, wild pitch, passed ball, catcher's interference, balk).

   AL money-line bettors were also sweating big-time because a base hit could have easily given the NL the outright upset. However, Rodriguez got Aaron Rowand to fly out harmlessly to right field to preserve the 5-4 AL victory. 

   One wager that the NL rally did thwart was the run line in which the favorite lays 1 1/2 runs while the underdogs gets +1 1/2. NL bettors cashed that bet while AL backers lost their seemingly sure winner.