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The Dodgers hosted the second all star game on August 3rd, In the first two decades of the game there were two pairs of teams that shared ballparks, located in Philadelphia and St. This led to some shorter-than-usual gaps between the use of those venues: The Cardinals hosted the game in , and the Browns in The Athletics hosted the game in , and the Phillies in The venues traditionally alternate between the American League and National League every year.
This tradition has been broken several times: The first time was in , when the AL Detroit Tigers were chosen to host the annual game as part of the city's th birthday corrected by the NL hosting the next two seasons. The second was when the two-game format during the — seasons resulted in the AL being one game ahead in turn. The AL will host its next game in in Cleveland. The "home team" has traditionally been the league in which the host franchise plays its games, but the American League was designated the home team for the All Star Game, despite its being played in Petco Park, home of the National League's San Diego Padres.
This decision was made following the announcement of Miami as host for the All Star Game, which was the third straight year in which the game is hosted in a National League ballpark. Since , the managers of the game are the managers of the previous year's league pennant winners and World Series clubs. The coaching staff for each team is selected by its manager. This honor is given to the manager, not the team, so it is possible that the All-Star manager could no longer be with the team with which he won.
This has also included situations where the person is no longer actively managing a team. For the first All-Star Game, intended as a one-time event, Connie Mack and John McGraw were regarded as baseball's venerable managers, and were asked to lead the American and National League teams, respectively.
McGraw came out of retirement for that purpose. In , he became manager of the California Angels , whose uniform he wore for the game. Louis Cardinals in , and retired after the season, came back to manage the National League in There have been some exceptional cases where the usual rule was abandoned. Because of the season-ending —95 MLBPA strike where the season was abandoned without official league champions, the game featured the "unofficial" league champions, the managers of the clubs leading their respective leagues' won-loss records, Buck Showalter of the New York Yankees and Felipe Alou of the Montreal Expos for the All-Star Game.
The All Star game roster size for each league was 18 in , 20 in , 25 in , 30 in , 32 in , and 33 in Since , there are 34 players on each league's team roster. Since the first game, American League players have worn their respective team uniforms rather than wearing uniforms made specifically for the game, while National League players waited until the second game to do this. During the games of the s and s, alternate jerseys were commonly worn by players from the Oakland Athletics , Baltimore Orioles , Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox.
When the late s and early s approached, fewer alternates were worn for the games. Game-specific uniforms are made every year, but are not worn for the game itself. Instead these uniforms are worn during batting practice and the Home Run Derby. For the workout, batting practice and Home Run Derby contest, players started using one type of cap with colors corresponding the league. For the All-Star Game day, players started wearing a cap with the team's logo on front and the All-Star Game logo on the right side. In and , the fans selected the 18 starters for game and the managers chose the rest of the two teams players.
In , fans were given the opportunity to vote on the eight starting position players, but in , fans of the Cincinnati Reds stuffed the ballot box see below , 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 unfairness, fan voting was discontinued; players, coaches, and managers were given the sole authority to elect starting position players, for the next dozen years. Between the lack of fan input and over-exposure due to the double All-Star games during the — seasons, interest in the game was thought to be waning.
As part of the rise of the MLB Promotion Corporation's attempts to modernize marketing of baseball, fan balloting for the starting eight was restored for the game. Sometime in the s, the distinction between left-fielder, center-fielder, and right-fielder was dropped, and it was provided that the top 3 vote-getters in the outfield category would start regardless of position.
Oft-heard remarks prior to this time included ones such as "If you had Clemente, you couldn't have Aaron", and so on. Rico Carty was the first player ever selected to an All-Star team as a write-in candidate by fans, in , the first year that voting was given back to the fans. Steve Garvey was the second player ever selected to an All-Star team as a write-in candidate by fans, in Since , the final roster selection has been made by the public via the All-Star Final Vote. Until , reserves and pitchers were chosen by the manager.
Player voting was re-introduced in after the managers were criticized for picking players from their own team over more deserving players from other teams. Before the game, Major League Baseball announced that an additional pitcher would be added to each roster, bringing the total for each league to 33 players. The following year , MLB announced that an extra position player would be added to each roster for the game and beyond, bringing the total to 34 for each league.
One continuing controversy of the player selection process is the rule that each team has to have at least one representative on its league's All-Star roster. Supporters of the rule point out that this prevents the large-market teams from totally dominating the squad, and keeps fan and media interest in the game, as fans would not be interested in the game if their team did not have any players involved.
Opponents of the rule contend that the purpose of the game is to spotlight Major League Baseball's best players, and that some players from stronger teams are left off the roster in favor of possibly less deserving players from weaker teams.
Both these arguments were strengthened by the greater urgency of winning the game, due to the former rule that the winning league attains home field advantage in the World Series. The only exception is if a team trades its lone All-Star before the game; in this case, its league's All-Star Game manager is not required to include another player from that team. Louis Cardinals first baseman Stan Musial. While the Reds were a great offensive team, most baseball observers agreed that they did not deserve seven starters in the All-Star Game.
An investigation ordered by Commissioner Ford Frick showed that over half of the ballots cast came from Cincinnati, as the Cincinnati Enquirer had printed up pre-marked ballots and distributed them with the Sunday newspaper to make it easy for Reds fans to vote often for their favorite stars. Managers, players, and coaches picked the entire team until , when the vote for starters again returned to the fans; to prevent a repeat of this incident , since until the start of internet voting, each team has been given the same number of ballots to hand out.
In , that number was roughly , ballots. The Game was surrounded by tacit accusations against Oakland A's fans of stuffing the ballot box in favor of catcher Terry Steinbach , whose qualifications as a starter were questioned by some sportswriters. Since the dawn of the internet age, online voting has again led to ballot stuffing. In , Chris Nandor, a Red Sox fan, utilized a simple computer program to vote for Nomar Garciaparra over 39, times. Upon discovery, MLB disallowed the votes. This also would have been a record for the most players from one team starting in the All-Star game.
In , a designated hitter was allowed in the All-Star Game for the first time. This allows a deserving nonstarter to make a plate appearance. In , Major League Baseball announced the designated hitter rule would apply for every All-Star Game; while the game was already to have the DH, the game was the first played in a National League park with a DH.
Presented each year beginning in two games were held in and an award was presented for each game , the MVP award was originally called the Arch Ward Memorial Award , after the man who came up with the concept of the All-Star Game in In , the name was changed to the Commissioner's Trophy two NL players were presented the award in ; however, the name change was reversed in , so that the World Series Trophy first awarded in could be renamed the Commissioner's Trophy.
In , the trophy itself retained its eponym, while the award itself was dedicated as The Ted Williams Most Valuable Player Award , in honor of former Boston Red Sox player Ted Williams , who had died earlier that year. The first tie in an All-Star Game occurred on July 31, at Fenway Park in Boston when the game was called at 1—1 after nine innings due to rain; the only other rain-shortened game was in , but the National League defeated the American League, 3—2 in five innings.
The All-Star Game, held in Milwaukee, ended in controversy in the 11th inning when both teams ran out of substitute players available to pitch in relief. At that point, Commissioner Bud Selig a Milwaukee native and former owner of the Brewers declared that the game would end after 11 innings, and it ended in a 7—all tie. The crowd booed and threw beer bottles onto the field, and the media were highly critical of this unsatisfactory conclusion.
To provide additional incentive for victory, Major League Baseball reached an agreement with the players union to award home-field advantage for the World Series to the champion of the league that won the All-Star Game, for and Previously, home-field advantage in the World Series alternated between the two leagues each year.
The Major League Baseball All-Star Game was the 54th playing of the midsummer classic The game was the first American League win since , and only their . Sax stole second and scored when next batter Tim Raines grounded to Stieb and Stieb show. v · t · e · Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Games. Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson once played each other in a While we've been blessed with Halloween baseball this year, as Game 4 of the World Series that they even led the town's first-ever Halloween parade later that day. who had come along for the day), Ruth took the mound for his All-Stars.
The American League took advantage of the new rule in each of its first seven years: Make no apologies, offer no explanations. Look at what the NHL did: It plays a tripleheader of All-Star Games. It creates four different squads, they meet in semifinals of one period each and then a one-period final with a winner-take-all bonus pool. An All-Star Game that has seemingly gone through every permutation except making one team not wear skates has suddenly become relevant and fun for the viewing audience and just lucrative enough for the players to make them give at least 75 percent and actually play offense and defense.
The first game could pit two teams of maybe 13 batters and five pitchers per league -- the actual, official All-Stars voted on by the players. Then, the second game could be another player team of fan favorites, voted on by the fans, whoever didn't make the "real" team.
You want Ichiro and Bartolo Colon? They, in turn, could play another man roster made up exclusively of the ever-popular, annually martyred "snubs": In our Thank-You-Gary-Bettman format, the winner of the first three-inning game plays the winner of the second three-inning game in the final. This three-inning game ends the evening and decides the All-Star Championship. And the winning team splits -- what? Heck, these are ballplayers. Start by offering them half a million -- they might take it. But what if one of the semifinals or the final is tied after three innings?
That's when you use this hair-brained, wild-card idea of starting an extra inning with a runner at second and nobody out. In those circumstances, it would be cool and fun, and it would amount to a kind of skills competition but with the added benefit of being a real-life one well, real-life- ish. And you could put in rules so a team has to change pitchers at least once an inning, or if one team runs out of catchers or whatever, they can use somebody from another team -- heck, have an instant draft before the final in which viewers at home get to vote online to add one player from each of the losing semifinals teams to one of the teams in the final.
Or half a million. They can split it up any way they want. You want to give the DH less cash? And if you had 18 players per team, you'd have a total of 72 All-Stars -- there are only 66 now -- so there would be more All-Stars, so the union would be happy and the fans would be happy. And there would be less of this endless kvetching every year about guys who got snubbed, and they would have hard cash on the line for these guys, and if they didn't all play like Pete Rose, they would all play hard, and it would be, you know, kinda interesting.
And if invoking Rose makes you worry about injuries like the one to Fosse -- whose shoulder still hurts -- think about this. There's Fosse's injury in , and Barry Larkin's tearing up his elbow in the long-since-eliminated skills competition in There's Harmon Killebrew's tearing a hamstring doing a split at first base in , and Ted Williams' breaking his elbow trying to catch Ralph Kiner's fly in And that's about it, except for Dizzy Dean's taking Earl Averill's liner off his toe in and coming back before it was fully healed, which screwed up his delivery, so he developed a sore arm and lost everything he had.
Oh, that's right, he didn't.
He went to the Hall of Fame anyway, and for 20 years was as famous as any other sports broadcaster in the country. Look, we have to do something to make the All-Star Game more than that thing you kinda watch the night after the Home Run Derby. Because the answers to the All-Star questions I asked at the start of this piece were:. He was out getting a heart procedure, and his bench coach, Brad Mills, got to run the show nearly five years after he managed his last regular-season game.
And if you forgot that bizarre All-Star fact, the real, sad truth about your actual, organic interest in the All-Star Game is: Not only didn't you know all the All-Star answers , but without going back to the first paragraph, you neither remember nor really care what the All-Star questions were.
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Turn it upside down American All-Stars. Harvey heads west, agrees with Angels Los Angeles Angels. McCutchen excited by Phils' hitter-friendly home Philadelphia Phillies.
In the next day's newspaper, first baseman Lou Gehrig would be portrayed playing first base in boots while holding an umbrella in his throwing hand. Ruth is often credited with saving baseball in the wake of the Black Sox scandal, though his influence is often overstated. Teams in this article: Several of the most expensive items of sports memorabilia and baseball memorabilia ever sold at auction are associated with Ruth. Johnny Bench Yogi Berra. On this day in , an explosion rips through an oil rig in the North Sea, killing workers. Louis Cardinals first baseman Stan Musial.
Twins surprise Mauer, will retire his No. Harper, Machado might have to settle for less Chicago White Sox. How good is J. Realmuto, and who needs him most? Astros reach 2-year deal with Brantley Houston Astros. Familia prioritized Mets return over role as closer New York Mets. Orioles introduce 'up-and-coming star' Hyde Baltimore Orioles. Dodgers announcer Steiner gets extension Los Angeles Dodgers.