By: Bill Campbell

Key team players are described in various ways. Around here at the moment, it's Chase Utley. That doesn't necessarily mean he has to hit safely in key spots or make the big turning-point defensive play. In reality, he just has to show up. It's his presence in the batting order, his influence on the opposing pitcher knowing he will have to be dealt with as the game goes on.

What we're talking about here is presence, his appearance in uniform ready to play and how his teammates, who have been struggling, react to his presence. Individually, Utley in his first game went 0 for 5. Expecting him to be the hitting star would have been unfair.

I think that Ron Washington, the manager of the Texas Rangers, put it best. Like the Phillies, the Rangers are in a first-place fight of their own in the American League West and scoring runs lately has been difficult. The Rangers' man is Josh Hamilton, whom Phillies' left-hander, Cliff Lee, calls the best player in baseball. Lee should know. He played with Hamilton for a while in Texas.

Like Utley, Hamilton has been on the disabled list and returned to action on the same day as Utley. In fact, he hit a home run in the first inning and led his team to victory.

How dramatic can you get?

But his manager, Washington, says the big thing is how the rest of the batting order reacted to Hamilton's return.

The Phillies reacted to Utley's with a seven-run inning. Charlie Manuel inserted Utley in the Number Two spot in the batting order and the players around him – principally Rollins, Howard and Polanco – collected seven hits among them. And the Phillies finally put on a long-awaited hitting show.

When it comes to key players and hot hitting, it would be downright negligent not to include a few words about Jose Bautista. He hit his 19th home run the other night in his first at-bat against the Yankees. Then he was intentionally walked later, reached base three times and is hitting 353.

Playing in Canada won't get you a lot of baseball headlines, especially when hockey games are going on which will determine the winner of the Stanley Cup. But Jose Bautista is playing like the keys to the kingdom for the Toronto Blue Jays as he did all of last year too. And now he has the Blue Jays just a game-and-a-half behind the first place Yankees.

We have just completed the first installment of 2011 baseball interleague play and I sometimes think it may have worn out its welcome.

It was an exciting idea when it was first introduced, but some think it has detracted from the All Star Game and the World Series. I lean toward that feeling myself at times, although I should confess here that All Star Games in any sport have never been my cup of tea -- not only in baseball, but in all sports. And the most meaningless of all is that silly Pro Bowl the NFL stages to retain some interest after the Super Bowl.

Baseball introduced the All Star Game a long time ago but its schedule over the years has remained unbalanced. For instance, the New York Yankees have yet to host the Los Angeles Dodgers except in the 1981 World Series and now the team that wins the All Star Game becomes the home team in the World Series – as if one had anything to do with the other! It never has made a great deal of sense to me as well as some of the other things that have happened during the administration of the current commissioner.

I find it interesting that most of the complaints about the baseball All Star Game come from quite a few players. The Atlanta Braves' Chipper Jones says he absolutely hates it. His big complaint is its schedule, which sometimes allows teams to play different teams in their own divisions.

Jim Leyland, the manager of the Detroit Tigers, points out that the Chicago White Sox play their city rival Cubs six times, but don't play the defending World Series' champion San Francisco Giants at all.

If you were an American League manager, which team would you like to play six times - the Cubs or the Giants?

It has often worked out that whichever team plays the softest interleague schedule wins the division and makes the playoffs and, possibly, the World Series. But the All Star Game is going to be around for a while. Overall baseball attendance is down this spring, a percentage or so. But attendance at the All Star game is up about 12 percent. So someone must like it.