Major League Baseball All-Star Game

Since 1934, the managers of the game are the managers of the previous year's league pennant winners and World Series clubs.[7]

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 happened in 2003, when Dusty Baker managed the National League team despite having moved from the National League champion San Francisco Giants to the Chicago Cubs. 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. Dick Williams resigned after managing the Oakland Athletics to the 1973 World Series. In 1974, he became manager of the California Angels, whose uniform he wore for the game. Tony La Russa, who managed the World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals in 2011, and retired after the season, came back to manage the National League in 2012.

In 1979, Bob Lemon managed the American League team after having been fired by New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Lemon led the Yankees to the 1981 World Series but did not make it to the '82 All-Star Game as manager after again being fired by Steinbrenner, so Billy Martin, skipper of the 1981 AL runner-up Oakland Athletics, led the All-Star squad.

There have been some exceptional cases where the usual rule was abandoned. After the 1964 season and the World Series, the managers, Johnny Keane of the St. Louis Cardinals and Yogi Berra of the New York Yankees, both left their teams and found new jobs in the other league – Keane was hired to manage the Yankees and Berra became a player-coach with the New York Mets. The Philadelphia Phillies and Cincinnati Reds had finished in a second-place tie in the NL; the Chicago White Sox had finished second in the AL. Cincinnati's manager, Fred Hutchinson, had died in the off-season, so Gene Mauch of the Phillies and Al López of the White Sox were chosen to be the managers for the 1965 All-Star Game. The rule will need abandoning again in 2020, as the manager of the 2019 American League champion Houston Astros, A.J. Hinch, was suspended for the 2020 season (and subsequently fired by the Astros) for his role in the Astros' scandal involving the usage of video to steal signs.[7]

Because of the season-ending 1994–95 MLBPA strike where the season was abandoned without official league champions, the 1995 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.

1933 AL All-Stars – Jimmie Foxx, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Al Simmons

1937 AL All-Stars – Joe Cronin, Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg

The All Star game roster size for each league was 18 in 1933, 20 in 1934, 25 in 1939, 30 in 1982, 32 in 2003, 33 in 2009, and 34 in 2010. Since 2018, there have been 34 players on each league's team roster.

On April 29, 2010, MLB announced several rules changes for future All-Star games, effective with the 2010 edition.[8]

• Rosters were expanded by one extra position player, to a total of 34.
• The designated hitter will be used in all games, even in National League ballparks.
• Pitchers who start on the Sunday before the game break will be replaced on the roster, but will still be recognized as All-Stars.
• Each manager may designate a position player who will be eligible for game re-entry if the last position player is injured or ejected. This is in addition to a rule that allows a player to re-enter to replace an injured or ejected catcher.

The AL and NL All-Stars are selected through the following process:

• Fan voting (eight N.L. players; nine A.L. players): Baseball fans vote on the starting position players for the All-Star Game, with ballots formerly distributed at Major League Baseball games before mid-season and, as of 2015, exclusively on the Internet. In games with the designated hitter, the American League DH is also selected in this manner (and the National League DH is selected by the manager). Fan voting has been recently criticized because most of the starting players can come from teams that have large fan bases or passionate fan bases such as the Kansas City Royals and the Chicago Cubs.[9]
• Player voting (16 players): Eight pitchers (five starters and three relievers) and one back-up player for each position are elected by the players, coaches, and managers.[10] If the top vote-getter at a position has also been selected via fan voting, the second-place finisher in this category is selected.
• Manager selection (nine N.L. players; eight A.L. players): The manager of each league's All-Star team – in consultation with the other managers in his league and the Commissioner's Office – will fill his team's roster up to 33 players. The NL manager will also select his team's designated hitter.[8] At this point, it is ensured that every team is represented by at least one player.
• Final vote (1 player): After the list of 33 players for each league is announced, fans vote (on the Internet) for one additional player, chosen from a list of 5 players that is compiled by the manager of each league's team and the Commissioner's Office.
• Replacements: After the roster is selected, the All-Star manager and the Commissioner's Office will replace players who are injured, decline to participate, and pitchers who started on the Sunday before the game.

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. In the first game, the National League All-Star Team wore gray uniforms with navy blue letters spelling "NATIONAL LEAGUE" across the front of the jersey with "NL" caps.[11]

During the games of the 1970s and 1980s, alternate jerseys were commonly worn by players from the Oakland Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox. When the late 1980s and early 1990s approached, fewer alternates were worn for the games. They were back in use for the 1992 game by White Sox pitcher Jack McDowell and infielder Robin Ventura, and for the final time in the 1997 game by Seattle Mariners outfielder Ken Griffey Jr. & by San Diego Padres 3rd baseman Ken Caminiti. Under current MLB rules, alternate jerseys are no longer allowed to be worn during the game, as players must wear either their team's white or gray uniforms, depending on which league is the home team.

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.[12]

Starting with the 2014 All-Star Game, players began to wear special All-Star Game caps. 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.

Bess and Margaret Truman submitting their ballots for the 1953 Major League Baseball All-Star Game rosters

In 1933 and 1934, the fans selected the 18 starters for game and the managers chose the rest of the teams players. From 1935 through 1944 and in 1946, the manager of each All-Star squad selected the entire team; in 1945, no MLB All-Star Game was held and no All-Stars were officially named.

In 1947, fans were given the opportunity to vote on the eight starting position players, but in 1957, 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 in 1959–1962, 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 1970 game.

Sometime in the 1960s, 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 1970, 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 1974. He was later the Most Valuable Player of that game as well as the National League MVP for that year.[13]

Since 2002, the final roster selection has been made by the public via the All-Star Final Vote.[14]

Until 2003, reserves and pitchers were chosen by the manager. Player voting was re-introduced in 2003 after the managers were criticized for picking players from their own team over more deserving players from other teams. This was particularly evident in 2002, when National League manager Bob Brenly selected his own catcher, Damian Miller, over the more deserving Paul Lo Duca; while American League manager Joe Torre selected his own third baseman, Robin Ventura, over the Oakland Athletics' Gold Glove and Silver Slugger-winning third baseman Eric Chavez.[15]

Before the 2009 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 2010 game and beyond, bringing the total to 34 for each league.[8]

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.[16]

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. A number of compromises were suggested in the sports/news media as measures to mitigate these selection issues, including limiting the number of representatives a particular team could have; or requiring only that a certain percentage of the 30 teams be represented; or expanding the size of the All-Star rosters.

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.[17]

In 1957, Cincinnati Reds fans stuffed the ballot box and elected 7 Reds players to start in the All-Star Game: Johnny Temple (2B), Roy McMillan (SS), Don Hoak (3B), Ed Bailey (C), Frank Robinson (LF), Gus Bell (CF), and Wally Post (RF), and the only non-Red elected to start for the National League was St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Stan Musial.

While the Reds were a good 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.

Commissioner Ford Frick appointed Willie Mays of the New York Giants and Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves to substitute for Reds players Gus Bell and Wally Post, and took fan voting rights away in future games; Bell was kept as a reserve, while Post was injured and would have been unable to play in any event.

Managers, players, and coaches picked the entire team until 1969, when the vote for starters again returned to the fans. To prevent a repeat of this incident, from 1970 until the start of internet voting, each team has been given the same number of ballots to hand out. In 1998, that number was roughly 400,000 ballots.

The 1988 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.[18][19][20] Steinbach wound up being named the game's Most Valuable Player, hitting a home run and a sacrifice fly to get both RBIs in a 2–1 win.[21]

Since the dawn of the internet age, online voting has again led to ballot stuffing. In 1999, Chris Nandor, a Red Sox fan, utilized a simple computer program to vote for Nomar Garciaparra over 39,000 times. Upon discovery, MLB rejected the votes.[22]

In 2015, Kansas City Royals fans were accused of stuffing the ballot box when eight of their players (Salvador Pérez, Lorenzo Cain, Mike Moustakas, Alcides Escobar, Eric Hosmer, Kendrys Morales, Alex Gordon, and Omar Infante) were leading the ballots at their respective positions before the final tally was taken.[23] Had this result stood, the only non-Royal in the American League's starting lineup would have been Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim player Mike Trout. This also would have been a record for the most players from one team starting in the All-Star game.[24] However, after MLB cancelled 65 million votes deemed to be fraudulent,[25] the final starting roster included only Salvador Pérez, Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar, and Alex Gordon (Gordon would be replaced due to injury[26]). The only other Royals to make the final lineup were Mike Moustakas, Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis; Moustakas as the winner of the AL All-Star Final Vote while Herrera and Davis, both pitchers, were chosen through either Player Ballots or by Royals and AL Manager, Ned Yost.

In 1989, a designated hitter was allowed in the All-Star Game for the first time. Between 1989 and 2010, the designated hitter rule was applied based on the league in which the host team plays; it was used for games played in American League ballparks – in each such instance, both teams used a designated hitter – while in National League ballparks, managers have scheduled the pitcher to hit, though pinch hitters have almost always been used in practice. This allows a deserving nonstarter to make a plate appearance. In 2010, Major League Baseball announced the designated hitter rule would apply for every All-Star Game; while the 2010 game was already to have the DH, the 2011 game was the first played in a National League park with a DH.[8]

• MLS All-Star Game
• NBA All-Star Game
• NFL Pro Bowl Game
• NHL All-Star Game