Pittsburgh ? The last time the National League won the All-Star Game, a Marlins pitcher (Al Leiter) secured the last out of a 6-0 victory in Philadelphia.

That was 10 long years ago and well before the great Milwaukee debacle of 2002 prompted baseball to assign artificial meaning to a midyear exhibition.

This One Counts? Well, it shouldn’t.

Speaking of which, the last time the NL won so much as a World Series game, a Marlins pitcher (Josh Beckett) got the last 27 outs of a 2-0 victory at Yankee Stadium.

That was nearly three years ago and safely before the Red Sox and White Sox snapped championship droughts lasting a combined 174 years.

To hear some of the talk before this All-Star game, it could be nearly as long before the NL is able to reclaim parity, much less superiority, with its younger counterpart.

Granted, the raw numbers are staggering.

Six of the past eight World Series have gone to the American League, including the past two in four-game sweeps.

Eight of the previous nine All-Star games had tilted in the AL’s direction, with the lone exception that freakish tie in Milwaukee.

Interleague play? This year’s count was a whopping 154-98 (.611) in favor of the Americans. That winning percentage is better than any NL team has at the break.

All of which brings us to the musical question: What should be done about this?

Should the NL get four outs per inning at the All-Star game? Four strikes per at-bat? The right to decide which pitchers take the mound for the AL and in what order?

Should Big Papi Ortiz, like a champion racehorse, have to run the bases with 10 pounds of lead strapped to his waist?

Next year the game goes to San Francisco, giving the same league consecutive games for the first time since 1961-62, when baseball was wrapping up its strange little experiment with two classics per summer.

Maybe baseball should just keep putting the All-Star Game in NL cities until the so-called Senior Circuit starts to balance things out. Commissioner Bud Selig sounds ready to put the 2008 game in New York.

Why not Shea Stadium, where the flyovers don’t end with the first pitch? That should distract the AL stars, huh?

Don’t like any of those brainstorms? Fine. Try this one.

U.S. vs. the World.

Hey, it works for the minor-leaguers at the Futures Game every July, and the NHL used a similar format for five years (1998-2002).

Just imagine the buzz baseball could create by pitting its best imports against our homegrown stars?

If nothing else, it would give the seal-the-borders set a fresh menace to rail against.

It might be the only way to get Manny Ramirez to show up for an extra game in the middle of July. Then again, the Red Sox slugger blew off the World Baseball Classic this spring, didn’t he?

Some things never change, like Manny Being Manny.