The All-Star Game is an exhibition game, a summer night celebration, a five-day party and a chance for a city to make a few (million) bucks while strutting its stuff before the nation. It's also a game where a score is kept, although sometimes the scoreboard seems to be an afterthought by the mid-innings as managers try to get 30 or more players into the game per squad.

However relaxed and convivial as this affair can seem, there are three geographic areas where the American League's 5-3 win meant far more than any of its trappings. Maybe, by season's end, this July score may mean as much as anything in their entire season. Those places are San Francisco/Oakland, Los Angeles and Baltimore/Washington. The league that wins the All-Star Game gets home-field advantage in the World Series. And the past five years, the team with home field also won the title.

In those five World Series, three were closed out on a home field in a Game 6 or Game 7. And in the other two series, the winner took a two-games-to-none lead at home and won the title with a one-sided stomping. Ambush 'em at your home yard to start or else close out before your howlin' mob. Read the rest of the story here.