A vote for a healthy Victorino

THE FANS get an opportunity to have a voice and enjoy being part of a contrived, sponsorship-driven election.

Major League Baseball gets thousands and thousands and thousands of new email addresses from those fans for its future marketing endeavors.

Baseball purists get apoplexy.

So it's a win-win-win situation. With that, welcome to the Final Vote.

By this time today, barring a drastic change in the voting habits among the population of those with nothing better to do, the Phillies' Shane Victorino will be an All-Star. Yesterday, as a man with a sprained right thumb, a day off and an election to win, Victorino made the media rounds and stumped for votes that would make him the final National League player selected.

If he wins, he will travel next week to Phoenix to an annual game that began as a kind of added attraction to the 1933 Chicago World's Fair and as a way of raising money for charity and continued on through the decades as a showcase for fans to see the best players. It was always about the fans, and about being a television show (watched by fans), and about the sport marketing its players and its merchandise (purchased by fans).

Fan voting for the starters, by punch cards in the ballpark or online - for the fans, and ridiculously popular.

Home Run Derby - terribly played out, but another ticket to sell (that fans buy) and another night of programming (that fans watch).

Winner hosts Game 1 of the World Series - to make it a better television show (and, therefore, more attractive to fans).

The Final Vote - et cetera.

That purists complain about this ignores nearly 80 years of history. It has always been an exhibition, a show. In that sense, it is only natural that Victorino - a player from a great team in a big market with a winning, infectious personality - is likely to be voted in for a second time as the final player on the NL team.

Here is the thing about Victorino: His personality is all about bursts of spontaneity, but his game this season has been all about metronomic consistency. It is why this thumb injury is one that bears watching and one that they shouldn't even consider fooling around with.

On Comcast SportsNet's "Daily News Live," Victorino said he hoped to be cleared by the doctors to play this weekend against the Braves. If it's my team and if the doctors say a few days off will heal things completely, Victorino doesn't play against the Braves and he doesn't play in the All-Star Game. He has become too important to risk a summer of less-than-optimal health because of a lingering problem. In a team of hits and misses and ups and downs, Victorino and Chase Utley are the most even performers - and the Phillies are desperate for that consistency.

Given their starting pitching, they will be impossible to stop if they 1) have Victorino and Utley performing at their regular rates as table setters and 2) have two of the other hitters also going at the same time. That is the formula at this point, it would seem. Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Placido Polanco, Raul Ibanez, Domonic Brown and Carlos Ruiz can rotate in and out of excellence as long as Victorino and Utley are Victorino and Utley.

You normally would add Polanco to the consistency list, but he really seems to be plagued by his bad back at this point and will visit a specialist in Philadelphia today. Bad backs linger, and Polanco's very well could linger, and that would be true whether he gets an at-bat in the All-Star Game or not.

Given that, the more you look at it, the more important Victorino and Utley become - but especially Victorino.

He has been their best, and most reliable, offensive player in the first half of the season - and this is even acknowledging the 3 weeks he missed beginning in mid-May with a hamstring strain. His .900 on-base plus slugging percentage is in the top 10 in the National League.

Victorino deserves to be an All-Star, not that deserving has anything to do with the Final Vote. It's just a show, and always has been. *

Send email to

hofmanr@phillynews.com,

or read his blog, The Idle Rich, at

www.philly.com/TheIdleRich.

For recent columns go to

www.philly.com/RichHofmann.