The MLB All-Star Game: An Exercise In Juxtaposition

This Tuesday, July 9th, both the storied American and National leagues will once again meet in the Midsummer Classic, where the biggest stars of the nation’s pastime will battle it out in Major League Baseball's All-Star Game for home-field advantage in the upcoming fall’s World Series.

This Tuesday, July 9th, Twitter campaigns, ballot-stuffing, and downright questionable baseball strategy will combine to produce a fun, light-hearted, and star-ridden event that puts baseball on the national stage.

Although it may seem to an outsider that baseball fans will have to make a difficult choice come Tuesday, the reality is they can and do experience both events, the tension-filled, edge of your seat barn burner and the backyard wiffleball style pickup game simultaneously, all thanks to the governing body of Major League Baseball.

Professional baseball is stuck in a tug-of-war between two motivations: the desire to pander to the traditionalists who make up their viewer demographic (average age: 53) and the desire to bring in new generations as fans of the game through sensationalism and excitement. Out of this two-pronged hive mind has sprung the modern All-Star Game, a hodgepodge of classical sentiment and modern marvel, that while clearly intended to be the best of both worlds, has morphed into somewhat the opposite.

Problems abound.

The Roster

The very name of the event suggests that, at the very least, fans will be greeted by a stream of the biggest stars in the sport, and to an extent, MLB delivers on that promise. Unlike the much-maligned and perhaps even more illogically run Pro Bowl, many of the best players in the league actually do play in the contest. However, in a process clearly aimed at bringing in the viewership of fans from terrible teams, Major League Baseball mandates that one player from every franchise receive a spot, deserving of the title "All-Star" or not. This desire to include both true stars and local heroes (used loosely) has bloated roster sizes to 34 players per side, meaning clearly that not every player will appear in the box score.

As a pre-2013 long-suffering Royals fan, seeing Mark Redman, owner of a 5.27 ERA, standing on the baselines during the national anthem produced not Royal pride but Royal embarrassment as I imagined the ignominy of my lowly franchise truly being exposed on the national stage. Of course, Redman never appeared in the game, and it seemed clear to me that his presence added nothing of a Kansas City "buzz" to the spectacle. Now, rarely do these “quota talents” see the field, as in Redman’s case, but their mere presence frankly demeans the integrity of the game as it’s presented.

Fan Voting

Fan balloting has been a part of the game almost since its inception, although patron influence over the contest has been revoked and given back several times. This motion again clearly invites increased fan interest and participation, but it lends itself to several problems.

Although fan excitement is clearly profitable for Major League Baseball's bottom line, when passion concentrates and multiplies in individual cities, ballot-box stuffing is sure to come around. The 2015 All-Star game saw a controversial Internet fan vote that at one point saw Royals leading the vote at 8 of the 9 starting positions. Although more logical heads (and perhaps the league office) eventually prevailed, seeing only 3 Royals start the contest, the explosion of Internet fan interest sufficiently angered the purists and traditionalists of the game. Teams themselves are forced to campaign tirelessly weeks in advance for their players’ nomination, lest they get left out among the deluge of support from other cities.

Letting the general, perhaps uninformed, populous vote for the players to represent their league will not put the best possible squad out on the field, a fact that proves all the more damaging when one considers the outsized importance this game has.

Inside the Game

Since 2002, the league winner of the All-Star game has been granted home field advantage in that year's World Series as part of MLB’s initiative to make the game “count”.

However, decisions and management inside the game do not at all hold true with this aim. A long-standing tradition of the Midsummer Classic has been that, unlike a regular game, reserves are shuttled in and out almost every inning, in an effort to give as many players (and fans) the chance to see their All-Star dreams realized. In 2015, a total of 57 players saw action in the game, stretching its run time to over 3 hours.

In addition to stretching the already oversize roster to its limits, the integrity of the game as a serious competition is further compromised when sentimentality is sought, as in previous years where aging Yankee legends Mariano Rivera and and Derek Jeter saw action. This is not to say that these moments are a negative for the sport as a whole - the tape of Rivera walking off the mound and Jeter crossing the foul line for the last time will surely live on in baseball lore. However, no one can argue that these moments are created in the best interest of the league in which they reside, for a stray Rivera cutter could have been hung out of the ballpark, changing the tide of the game, and perhaps, the World Series.

Clearly, baseball needs to take a stance, committing to either purporting its All-Star game as a fun, carefree fan experience, or a serious clash of titans, as consequences have begun to arise. The last two contests, free of any Jeter-related drama, have posted the worst national television ratings of any All-Star Game in the modern era.

Whichever path they choose will be celebrated by some and resented by others,  but a future of two-timing simply cannot go on any longer. Fix the All-Star Game.