Don’t Encourage Fans To Vote For All-Star Lineups

By Dan Schlossberg

Like a banana republic election, Major League Baseball is once again telling its fans to vote early, vote often, and pick their favorites for the 2024 All-Star Game.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again.

Any fair election should involve one person and one vote. But All-Star voting allows one fan to vote five times on any given day and cast votes every day the balloting continues.

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred inspects the 2024 All-Star logo. The game is scheduled for July 16 at Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX.Photo byMajor League Baseball

Does Rob Manfred not remember 1957, when Cincinnati fans stuffed the ballot box, electing every Reds starter except first baseman George Crowe, who somehow couldn’t usurp someone named Stan Musial.

Astute Commissioner Ford Frick voided the fan selections, executed an executive order replacing Gus Bell and Wally Post with Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, and stripped the fans of the right to vote.

No wonder Frick’s in the Hall of Fame — and has an award named after him too!

This year’s computerized ballot is sponsored by something called BuildSubmarines.com, which has more to do with the U.S. Navy than a BLT hoagie. But the whole concept is more likely to sink rather than swim anyway.

Fans invariably elect players whose names or teams they recognize, meaning that players from teams on both coasts have huge advantages.

On the plus side, the ballot designers were careful enough to exclude such injured stars as defending NL MVP Ronald Acuna, Jr., who tore his ACL and prematurely ended his season on Sunday afternoon, May 26. The leading vote-getter last year won’t be an All-Star this year.

On the minus side, the ballot lists the batting averages of the players — including sub-.200 marks for NL outfielders Eddie Rosario, Adam Duvall, and Michael A. Taylor.

No one doing that poorly deserves to be rewarded with an All-Star berth, though there is precedent. Davey Lopes was once elected the National League’s starting second baseman with a .169 average and Reggie Jackson limped into the American League lineup with a .199 mark.

If either of them had any integrity, he could have declined the invitation. An honorable man would do that but wait! Some contracts contain provisions awarding bonuses for things like making the All-Star team!

The main point is that All-Stars should be the players performing like All-Stars, not players of past renown running on fumes.

Mike Schmidt, to cite one example, was once elected the NL’s starting third baseman after he retired! Ditto Luis Aparicio, a deserving Hall of Fame shortstop who had name recognition but little else left when the fans foolishly annointed him.

The good news is that the current voting system is complex, allowing athletes and coaches to have their say too (June 27 is the cutoff date for the fan vote, thankfully.)

But it isn’t like the Good Old Days, when players, coaches, and managers were the exclusive selectors of starting All-Star lineups. They were barred from voting more than once or voting for teammates.

That system was fair. But perhaps it was too simple to attract a sponsor willing to waste money on a worthless promotion.

Sadly, for Baseball 2024, All-Star Voting is just another revenue grab.

Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ notes that Hank Aaron was an All-Star 25 times, including 21 years in a row — both major-league records. Schlossberg’s latest book is Home Run King: the Remarkable Record of Hank Aaron. Email comments to ballauthor@gmail.com.