Baseball traditionalists might be cringing, but for the sold-out Hadlock Field crowd of 7,368, it was one dramatic way to end a ballgame.

After nine innings and a 4-4 score in the Eastern League All-Star Game Wednesday night, the league used a “Home Run Shootout” to decide the winner.

And the Eastern Division won on Brian Pointer’s home run on the 22nd shootout swing, causing Hadlock to erupt and his teammates to mob him.

“That was crazy,” said Pointer, an outfielder/designated hitter for the Reading Fightin Phils. “To have it end like that … Made it exciting and pretty suspenseful.”

In the actual game, Sea Dogs shortstop Marco Hernandez hit the only regulation home run, a two-run shot in the second inning. Hernandez finished 2 for 2 with two runs and two RBI. He was named the game’s MVP, the first Sea Dogs player so honored since Todd Dunwoody in 1996.

“It was awesome,” said Hernandez before getting a celebratory shaving cream pie in the face from pitcher William Cuevas, his Sea Dogs teammate.

Cuevas started the game with a 1-2-3 first inning. Two other Portland pitchers appeared with Madison Younginer recording a scoreless sixth, and Robby Scott getting the Eastern Division out of a bases-loaded jam in the seventh, before pitching a 1-2-3 eighth.

Two other Sea Dogs played: third baseman Jantzen Witte was 0 for 2 and second baseman Carlos Asuaje 0 for 1.

Hernandez singled and scored in the first inning. In the second inning, Hernandez crushed a fastball to right field, capping a three-run inning for a 4-0 lead. Hernandez leads the league with a .326 average.

“I don’t know how long he’ll be with us, as well as he’s been playing,” said Sea Dogs (and Eastern Division) Manager Billy McMillon. “But we’re going to cherish every moment he’s with us.”

The Western Division got a run back in the second and scored three off New Britain pitcher Austin House in the seventh. He exited the game with two outs in the inning, bases loaded and the score 4-4. The left-handed Scott was summoned to face lefty Ricky Oropesa. Scott got him to ground out.

“If you have to write the script, as a reliever that’s the opportunity you want,” Scott said.”

When nine innings were over, in a format decided before the game, each team picked three batters to participate in the shootout. The batters – all left-handers, in deference to the left-field wall – got one swing in the first round.

After that, the format was sudden death, again with each batter getting one swing to homer.

“The energy – everybody was into it,” McMillon said. “It worked better than I thought it would.”

In the first sudden-death round, Reading’s Brock Stassi crushed a ball, but it just missed going over.

“I thought it was gone. I even threw my bat in the air,” Stassi said. “But it was fun. One swing was kind of tough, but it added to the excitement.”

In the third sudden-death round, Oropesa blasted a ball down the line. But as the Western team began celebrating, the umpire called it foul.

“It was fair,” said Richmond Flying Squirrels (and Western) hitting coach Ken Joyce. “It hooked right around the foul pole.”

Then, in the fourth sudden-death round – the 11th swing by an Eastern batter – Pointer hit a blast to the third row of the right-field pavilion.

Pointer likes Hadlock. Earlier this season, he hit three home runs in one game. And he got another Wednesday.

“I thought I got it pretty good,” Pointer said. “I kept my hands in the air, watching it.”

The home run ended a long day. Fans began lining up hours before the gates opened at 3 p.m. And when those gates opened, fans flooded in for autographs, batting practice and a scheduled Home Run Derby.

Four hours after the gates opened, the All-Stars were introduced. And with an added Sea Dogs’ touch, the starting All-Stars entered the field through the stands, greeting fans on their way to the field – a move borrowed from the Sea Dogs’ annual Field of Dreams game.

Then came the game.

Nine innings later, the home run hitters lined up for a shootout.

“That was something else,” Pointer said.

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