ANAHEIM – Major League Baseball's Midsummer Classic was played with heavy hearts on a simmering Tuesday, what with the passing of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in the morning.

But more heat and heartache is on the horizon for the national pastime with next summer's All-Star Game in Arizona, where the controversial immigration law S.B. 1070 takes effect July 29.

Leave it to Angels center fielder Torii Hunter to encapsulate perfectly the tempest brewing:

"That's a hot tamale," he said.

It needn't be, not if Commissioner Bud Selig did something. Anything. And not necessarily move the game to protest the divisive, ugly law which can and, make no mistake, will engender racial profiling.

That's the extreme and would get the attention of not only the sporting world but the real world.

But that would mean Selig would have to actually address an issue rather than sit on his hands, hold his breath and hope the controversy goes away on its own.

Baseball wouldn't be without precedent. The NFL pulled the Super Bowl in 1993 after Arizona declined to recognize Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a holiday.

For now, all Selig has to do is make some sort of statement, regardless of his personal political beliefs, that he wants to make sure his Latino players will be safe and taken care of in such a potentially conflict-ridden atmosphere.

Consider: 23.2 percent of the players on Opening Day rosters and disabled lists this season were foreign-born Latinos, including Puerto Rico. The number rises to 28.1 percent of the All-Stars assembled in Southern California, many of whom said they were contemplating skipping next year's game in protest.

"They say (the law is) about this, that or the other," said Detroit reliever José Valverde, a Dominican. "But it's all about getting Latinos out of this country."

I asked Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda, who witnessed the rise of Fernandomania in 1981, what he thought of players boycotting.

"I don't see why they should," Lasorda said. "Are we condoning people that are here illegally? What's going on here? They broke the law … by golly. Boycotting? That's crazy."

Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, smiled sadly. She said she's a Lasorda fan but disagreed with his logic as she oversaw the peaceful pregame protest of about 200 in front of Angel Stadium, urging Selig to move the game.

"Does (Lasorda) check people's papers when he takes their green at the door?" Salas wondered. "We're not against baseball. It's a part of America, who we are. The image of baseball should not be sullied.

"We're just asking Bud Selig not to shy away and have some courage in a difficult and divisive time for our country."

Signs were held aloft that read, "We Are All Arizona" and, "Immigrant Families Are American Families."

Caught in the crosshairs are U.S.-born Latino stars like San Diego's Adrian Gonzalez, the Dodgers' Andre Ethier and the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez, who sadly offered no opinion.

"Wrong guy," Rodriguez said before pointing to other players.

But Ethier, whose maternal side of the family settled in Phoenix from Hermosillo five generations ago, and Gonzalez, born in California and raised in San Diego and Tijuana, were thoughtful.

Gonzalez said he didn't care for the law and would "consider" boycotting the game if the Major League Baseball Players Association gave the green light.

"We're not politicians," Gonzalez said. "We're baseball players. That's our job."

Ethier acknowledged he didn't know about the law enough to form an opinion.

"But the basics of it are not a lot of what this country was founded upon," he said. "It's just unfortunate that this game that brings so many together can get so divided over this and cause a hiccup."

Someone needs to scare that hiccup out of Selig.