Major League Baseball All-Star Game
The Major League Baseball All-Star Game, also popularly known as the "Midsummer Classic", is an annual baseball game between players from the National League and the American League, currently selected by fan vote for the starting position players and by the manager for pitchers and reserve players. The All-Star Game usually occurs in early to mid-July and marks the symbolic halfway point in the Major League Baseball (MLB) season (though not the mathematical halfway point; in most seasons, the game actually takes place after about 55% of the season has been completed), and since 2003 it has been used to determine home field advantage for the upcoming World Series.
The first All-Star Game was held as part of the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago and was the brainchild of Arch Ward, then sports editor for The Chicago Tribune. Initially intended to be a one-time event, its great success resulted in making the game an annual one.
Choosing the venue
The venue is chosen by Major League Baseball and traditionally alternates between the two leagues every year. (This tradition was first broken in 1951, when the Detroit Tigers were chosen to host the annual game as part of the city's Sesquicentennial at Briggs Stadium, and will be broken again in 2007, when the San Francisco Giants will be the host for the 2007 All-Star Game. Another NL team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, will host the 2006 event.) The "home team" is the league in which the host franchise plays its games. The criteria for choosing the venue are subjective; for the most part, cities with new parks and cities who have not hosted the game in a long time tend to get the nod. In 2005, Comerica Park, the new home of the Tigers, hosted the Midsummer Classic. The last All-Star Game to be played in a stadium that was not hosting its first All-Star Game was the 1999 game in Boston's Fenway Park. To date, only three franchises have never hosted a game: the Florida Marlins, the Arizona Diamondbacks, and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. (The Washington Nationals hosted the game when they were the Montreal Expos.)
The designated hitter rule is applied based on the league in which the host team plays. In an American League ballpark, both teams use a designated hitter to hit for the pitcher. In a National League ballpark, lineups schedule the pitcher to hit, though pinch hitters are almost always used. The last instance in which a pitcher took his scheduled at-bat was in 2004, as the American League lineup batted around (viz., sent all nine members of the starting lineup to bat at least once in one inning) the National League starting pitcher, Roger Clemens, in the first inning, enabling AL starter Mark Mulder to bat (Clemens struck him out). If he had been replaced by a pinch hitter, he wouldn't have been eligible to pitch the bottom of the first inning. [1]
The rosters
The manager for each league's team has for many years been the manager of the previous year's league champion. Note that this honor is applied to the person, not the team, so it's possible that the All-Star manager could no longer be with the team he won with, as happened in 2003, when Dusty Baker managed the National League team despite having moved from the champion San Francisco Giants to the Chicago Cubs in the off-season. (However, Baker had at least moved to a different team in the same league. If he had switched to an American League team, or left baseball entirely, his eligibility to manage the All-Star game would have been in question. There is some precedent for the later scenario: on two separate occasions, Bob Lemon managed the American League team after having been fired by New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.) The coaching staff is selected by the manager.
Each team consists of 32 players, selected in one of the following ways, listed in order:
- Fan voting: Baseball fans vote on the starting position players for the All-Star Game, with ballots distributed at baseball games before mid-season and, more recently, on the Internet. When the game is played at an American League park, the designated hitter for the AL team is also selected in this manner.
- Player voting: As of 2005, pitchers and one back-up player for each position are elected by the other players. If the top vote-getter at a certain position is also being voted in via fan voting, then the second-place finisher in this category is chosen for the team.
- Manager selection (first): The manager and the Commissioner's Office will fill the roster up to 31 players.
- Final vote: After the lists of 31 players for each league is announced, fans will vote for one additional player, chosen from a list of 5 players provided by the manager and the Commissioner's Office.
- Manager selection (second): After the final vote, the manager and the Commissioner's Office will replace players who are injured or declined to participate. Each major league team is guaranteed to have at least one player selected to participate, though single players from poor teams are occasionally not used (Detroit's Carlos Guillen, in 2004, was the last to be selected and not be put into the game by the manager).
Between 1935 and 1946, the manager of each All-Star squad selected the entire team. Fans received the right to vote on the eight starters (excluding the pitcher) starting in 1947. In 1957, fans of the Cincinnati Reds stuffed the ballot box as a result of a promotion by a local newspaper which printed pre-marked ballots, and elected a Red to every position except first base. Commissioner Ford Frick stepped in and removed two Reds from the lineup. As a response to this fiasco, the right to elect the non-pitching starters was taken away from the fans until 1970. From 1958 through 1969, players, coaches, and managers made the choices.
One of the most controversial aspects of the player selection process is a rule that each team has to have at least one representative on its league's All-Star roster. While this rule made sense in baseball's pre-expansion days, when there were only eight teams in each league, many now consider it to be outdated since there are now almost twice as many Major League teams in existence. Opponents of the rule contend that the purpose of the game is to spotlight MLB's best players, and many superior players get left off the roster in favor of less deserving players from weaker teams. Supporters of the rule maintain that if the rule were dropped, a small number of powerful teams could end up dominating most of the available roster space. Also, supporters of the rule say that it gives fans from every team (even the poor teams) a reason to watch the game-the reason being that if the game were dominated only by players from a few top teams many fans wouldn't watch because they wouldn't have a favorite or familiar player to follow.
A number of compromises have been suggested, such as limiting the number of representatives a particular team could have, or requiring that a certain percentage of teams be represented. However, Major League Baseball has not indicated that it is considering altering or eliminating the rule in any form.
Year-By-Year Rosters
Ties
At Fenway Park in Boston on July 31, 1961, the first All-Star Game tie in history occurred when the game was stopped in the 9th inning due to rain.
Following a highly controversial situation in the 2002 game when both teams ran out of pitchers in the 11th inning, and in response Commissioner Bud Selig declared the game over, Major League Baseball changed the rules to give the All-Star game "meaning" and additional incentive for victory. From the 2003 season up to the present, the champion of the league that won the All-Star game was to be given home-field advantage for the World Series (something Selig is considering ending, as the AL is unbeaten in every All-Star Game since 1997). Previously, home-field advantage in the World Series alternated between the two leagues each year.
Even under the new rules, there is no guarantee that a repeat of the 2002 situation might not occur. The game could still be called a "suspended game" in which case it would become a tie if no make-up date was scheduled. It would be extremely difficult to find such a make-up date: Major League Baseball would have to postpone one or more days of the regular season and/or schedule the make-up date on the travel day between the regular season and the Division Series. Also, one team or the other could alternatively forfeit the game by refusing to continue. (See: Major League Baseball's "Official . Rules: 4.00 Starting and Ending a Game.") [2]
Oddities
In 1945, with severe wartime travel restrictions in effect, the All-Star Game scheduled to be played at Boston's Fenway Park was canceled.
There were two All-Star Games played each season from 1959 to 1962. The second game was added to raise money for the players' pension funds, as well as other causes.
Of the eighteen players who started the 1934 All-Star game, only one, Wally Berger, is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The 1981 game in Cleveland was moved from its original July date to Sunday night, August 9th. It was the first non-exhibition game played after the end of the players' strike, with second half play beginning the next afternoon with a game in Wrigley Field in Chicago. The 1981 game is the only game to be played on a weekend.
In 1995, because of the players' strike in 1994, the managers of the unofficial league champions (by best record), who were each rewarded as winners of the Manager of the Year Award, were awarded the right to manage the 1995 teams -- Montreal's Felipe Alou and the Yankees' Buck Showalter.
Stuffing the ballot box
1947 was the first year that baseball allowed fans to vote for the starters on the All-Star team.
In 1957, fans of the Cincinnati Reds stuffed the ballot box and elected 7 Reds players to start in the All-Star Game. They were:
- Johnny Temple, 2B
- Roy McMillan, SS
- Don Hoak, 3B
- Ed Bailey, C
- Frank Robinson, LF
- Gus Bell, CF
- Wally Post, RF
The only non-Red elected to start for the National League was St. Louis Cardinals' first baseman Stan Musial. While the Reds were known to be a great offensive team with many outstanding position players, most baseball observers agreed that they did not deserve seven starters in the All-Star game. An investigation showed that over half of the ballots cast came from Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Enquirer had printed up pre-marked ballots and distributed them with the Sunday newspaper to make it easy to vote early and often. There were even stories of bars in Cincinnati not serving alcohol to customers until they filled out a ballot.
Commissioner Ford Frick decided to appoint Willie Mays of the New York Giants and Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves to substitute for Reds players Gus Bell and Wally Post. In addition, Frick decided to strip the fans of their voting rights. Managers, players, and coaches picked the entire team again until 1969, when the vote again returned to the fans.
To guard against further ballot stuffing, since 1969 each team has been given the same number of ballots to hand out. In 1998, that number was roughly 400,000 ballots. Since the dawn of the internet age, online voting has again raised fears of ballot stuffing. Yet Major League Baseball assures its fans that they have taken precautions to guard against this.
Other All-Star Weekend events
Since 1985, the Home Run Derby, a contest between home run hitters, has been played on the day before the All-Star Game. Also, a celebrity softball game is held the day before the Home Run Derby. The teams are usually a mixture of former stars from the host team's past, plus some celebrities from music, film, and television. Since 1999, the All-Star Futures Game has been held during All Star weekend. The two teams, one consisting of young players from the United States and the other consisting of young players from all other nations, are usually chosen based on prospect status in the minor leagues.
Major League Baseball All-Star Games (1933-present)
77 All-Star Games have been played, with the National League winning 40 and the American League winning 35 (there were 2 ties). The National League has the longest winning streak of 11 games from 1972-1982.
2008 All-Star Game and Beyond
Among the cities in the running for 2008's All-Star Game are Anaheim (whose stadium was so completely transformed in the late 1990s and early 2000s that some people almost consider it a whole new entity), Tampa Bay, Minnesota, and Toronto. Commissioner Selig said during the 2005 All-Star Break that the 2008 game will definitely go to an American League city. His statement would put the cities of Phoenix, Washington, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and San Diego in position for a run at the 2009 All-Star Game. It is likely that Minnesota will not be selected for the 2008 All-Star Game so that the 2010 ASG can be held in the Twins' then-brand new ballpark scheduled to open that season.
Recently (March 2006), It has been rumored that the New York Yankees would get the game, as a way to send the historic stadium off before the new Yankee Stadium opens next door in 2009. Then again, some people say the Yankees should not host the 2009 All-Star Game because of three other years where they have hosted. Many people also say that the New York Mets might as well be hosting years such as 2009 and 2013 considering the new ballpark the Mets plan to have by 2009.
Commissioner Bud Selig recently announced that Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City will likely host an All-Star game sometime between 2010 and 2014. He also said that the earliest an All-Star Game likely could be held at Chase Field would be 2011, when the ballpark will be 13 years old. This is because St. Louis with its new Busch Stadium and adjacent Ballpark Village is the favorite to host in 2009. [3]