PHILADELPHIA — They had waited for hours, through a fusillade of mid-game fireworks, through an injury scare to one of baseball’s brightest young stars. They sat through innings that zipped by without incident, a tidy summation of the supremacy of pitching in the modern game. The fans at Citizens Bank Park rode out the doldrums of the 96th MLB All-Star Game because they knew Bryce Harper resided on the bench of the National League, and for as long as his presence lingered, so did the possibility of magic.The moment arrived in the bottom of the sixth inning, when Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts activated Harper, the two-time MVP and face of the Phillies franchise. Harper acknowledged the crowd. He fiddled with an earpiece connecting him to the Fox broadcast crew and eyed Cleveland Guardians closer Cade Smith.“This guy’s disgusting,” Harper murmured to the announcers and all the folks at home. “So we’ll see what happens, boys.”Five pitches later, Harper went the way of so many others during a 4-0 victory for the American League. He struck out swinging, unable to catch up to the pitching on display. The box score on Tuesday featured 27 strikeouts and only two hits. Harper could not inject slugging into the contest. No one could, at least until Chicago White Sox infielder Miguel Vargas launched a solo home run in the eighth inning.It was an evening of anticlimax. The game took place without the MVPs of the 2025 season. Los Angeles Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani was dealing with a knee issue. New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge has been sidelined since May with injured ribs. Another potential calamity surfaced on Tuesday when Tampa Bay Rays star Junior Caminero left the game after getting hit by a pitch in the third inning; an X-ray on his hand came back clean, allowing the night to pass without controversy.The day began with the rattling of sabers. Inside a hotel ballroom about three miles north of the ballpark, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and MLBPA interim director Bruce Meyer offered conflicting visions for the future of the sport, a disagreement that foretells a labor stoppage this winter. With the collective bargaining agreement set to expire in December, the owners have proposed a salary cap system. The union has sworn it will never accept a cap. The standoff could spill into the 2027 season if the owners, as they did after 2021, initiate a lockout.Manfred has framed the cap as a panacea for less competitive franchises and an antidote for the hegemony of the back-to-back champion Dodgers. Manfred suggested that the success of recent on-field tweaks, like the implementation of the pitch clock and the automated ball-strike system, authorized the owners to overhaul the game’s financial infrastructure.