Green: A midsummer act more popular than the game
For an exhibition game, it sure causes a lot of trouble. The announcement of baseball’s All-Star roster is always an occasion for the gnashing of teeth, and this year is no different. Yet, this year’s obligatory ire had a more northeasterly bent than usual, with wrath homing in on our City on a Hill like a summer squall.
Seven Red Sox made the AL team, and seven Cubs made the cut in the NL, prompting the AP to suggest that maybe the Red Sox and Cubs “should just play their own all-star game.” Yet, perhaps because the Cubs still have their “loveable losers” label, most folks just seem happy for them. (Except for fans of the Brewers, Cardinals and cross-town rival White Sox, naturally.) The Red Sox, by now, are a completely different kettle of fish. A kettle of omnipresent, big-payroll, media-saturated fish. Is the country just suffering from Red Sox fatigue, or is Boston’s crop of All-Stars really so undeserving?
Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz are locks, even when they’re injured or slumping. That’s the “star” part of All-Star — after all, if the exhibition were just about who is having the best statistical year, there would be no reason to even have a vote. Jonathan Papelbon and J.D. Drew, both elected by the players, are hardly controversial picks.
No, the public outcry stems mainly from the fans’ election of Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia and the players’ selection of Jason Varitek. Yet, Youkilis has the highest batting average of any AL first baseman and is turning in another stellar defensive season. Pedroia’s election admittedly confused the Objective Analyst lobe of my brain (even as it flooded the Boston Partisan cortex with joy) since Ian Kinsler of the Rangers is having such a fantastic season. But the befuddlement I felt at Varitek’s inclusion as a reserve was almost instantly swept away by surprise at the scorn it elicited. Varitek was actually not the players’ first choice — he finished well behind Joe Mauer in their vote. But since Mauer had already been elected by the fans, Varitek was in. Flukey, certainly, but hardly a recount-in-Florida-caliber mess.
Nonetheless, as usual, few fans are happy and fewer will actually watch. Yet, unlike many of the honors that so often roil the baseball world — the Hall of Fame and MVP voting, which is done by 575 baseball writers, or Gold Glove voting, which is done by some 200 coaches and managers — the players selected for the All-Star roster were chosen by 16.5 million fan-cast ballots and some portion of 1,200 major-league players. So if mistakes were made, at least they were made democratically.
But for those fans who feel jilted by this year’s Midsummer Classic, there is a better reward in the offing for the good-but-overlooked team, one with a pretty fail-safe selection system: the Fall Classic.
Sarah Green is a freelance writer.
