Popularity Contest: MLB All Star Game
This year’s All-Star Game is being held at the beautiful T-Mobile Park in Seattle, Washington. Throughout the years, this game has been meant to bring in the league’s best players at the half season mark. Fans now are starting to argue that this is no longer true. Fan voting was introduced in 1970 and many people believe it has been 53 years of unfairness. A lot of people believe it is just a fun exhibition match where our favorite players are having fun, but it is much more than that. Remember that the respective league who wins the All-Star Game gets home field advantage in the World Series. We all know how important home field advantage is especially in the October classic so that alone should get the best players from each league, but people do not see it that way.
The commotion this year around voting came about the Atlanta Braves and Toronto Blue Jays. Atlanta set a franchise record this year with 8 selections including a pitcher who started in the minor leagues. Many fans do not agree with this, especially with the selection of Orlando Arcia. Some would argue that Francisco Lindor has had a better first half than Arcia, having more home runs and rbi’s. After phase one voting, the Toronto Blue Jays had many of their players leading in voting including Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Bo Bichette, Matt Chapman, and Kevin Kiermaier. I was even in disbelief when I saw a player such as Kevin leading in votes, although he is having a good year, he is not producing more than Adolis Garcia and Luis Robert Jr who would later be named as reserves. Moving forward the MLB will continue to have dissatisfied fans until this problem is solved or a change is made.
