His manager, Charlie Manuel, and a handful of teammates were there, looking on, knowing in their bones that he was about to deliver.
"For sure," said leftfielder Raul Ibanez. "I've seen him do it so many times."
"I thought he had a bead on it," said Jayson Werth.
This time, the storybook ending didn't materialize. Howard struck out against Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon and the American League hung on to win, 4-3, and will once again have the homefield advantage in the World Series.
"I just tried to go up there and drop the head of the bat on the ball," he said. "I fouled off a few. I was just trying to win the game. That's the game of baseball. Sometimes it happens that way."
Tampa Bay's Carl Crawford was voted the game's Most Valuable Player, largely on the basis of a nice catch at the wall to rob Colorado's Brad Hawpe of a home run in the seventh.
The National League hasn't won the All-Star Game since it was played at Veterans Stadium in 1996.
This was the fourth straight year the AL has won by a run, and the reason it did last night was pretty simply. The NL managed just five hits. At one point, 18 straight hitters were retired on just 48 pitches.
"I felt like we hit the ball better than five hits," Manuel said. "The whole game was centered around pitching and they have some horses."
The deciding run scored in the top of the eighth off San Diego's Heath Bell and, unless he's traded to a contender, that's probably not going to matter to him one way or the other.
Detroit's Curtis Granderson tripled with one out. Manuel, running the National League squad, had catcher Victor Martinez walked intentionally to set up a potential inning-ending doubleplay. But Adam Jones delivered a sacrifice fly instead to drive in the deciding run.
Joe Nathan and Mariano Rivera shut down the NL in the last two innings to preserve the win.
