Visit All World All Sports, All World All Sports Newspaper Links, Sports Rage Page.

by Digger

There's an old saying in American politics, "Every Vote Counts" (unless you're the Democrat National Committee suppressing Michigan and Florida Primary ballots). In Major League Baseball, the mantra seems to be vote early and vote often.

Major League Baseball opened All Star Game voting/ballots online and in ballparks on April 29. It's quite amusing to see voting beginning so far in advance of this years' game and with less than one month completed in the regular season. Yankee Stadium, during it's farewell season, will host the 2008 game in New York style.

Ballot box stuffing is nothing new to baseball All Star votes. In days of old, chad punch type ballots was the only form for fans to cast their selections of favorite players. Nowadays, online ballots help to generate millions of votes. Each fan can cast up to 25 ballots per email account (vote on MLB.com). Fans with multiple email addresses can submit limitless ballots.

So what is wrong with this system of fans selecting starting players for All Star Games? Apparently, nothing in the eyes of Major League Baseball. Fans selecting starting position players has long been a staple of the game. The downside of this system is fans often select favorite players, sometimes even injured ones, while others more deserving could be left off their league squad. Fan involvement is great for the game, but why is balloting starting earlier and earlier season after season? Less than one month of competition hardly makes any player deserving of All Star selection. Let's face it, MLB is clearly doing this so they can announce record votes. Unfortunately, this clouds the game and will certainly leave some selections infuriated.

When votes are tallied and revealed a great debate often follows questioning starters and reserves selected by managers. Many players achieve statistical greatness and sometimes they're left out... each year it seems to happen. This scenario seems to present itself more often than not. Suppose New York favorite Jason Giambi was to be selected to play this year? Giambi is currently hitting below .200 as he struggles to find his stroke. Fans also could select another New York favorite Hideki Matsui to start at DH. Perhaps managers would then select popular sluggers David Ortiz (a DH) or Jim Thome (another DH) or outfielders having better seasons while leaving out 1B's such as Carlos Guillen, Justin Morneau or Kevin Youkilis. It becomes dicey but this is the nature of our great game.

Once again, this years' All Star Game will decide which league wins the right to host more World Series games. Initially, the home field advantage in World Series games would alternate from league to league, season to season. After baseball had their last work stoppage, and after Commissioner Bud Selig made a monumental mistake of declaring a tie (7-7) in the 1992 mid-season classic, baseball was left searching for a way to give this game new meaning. Alas, the winning league would host home field advantage (4 games out of 7) in the Fall Classic. This is just another of baseball's hot potato subjects.

As a fan, let the players play. Go back to alternating World Series hosts from AL to NL. Let's face it, more than half of All Star game players will not be on World Series rosters and they should not decide Championships. All Star starters generally are not selected on current season merit.. often times selected by nothing more than sheer popularity. This is no way to dictate how a World Series is formatted.

If the Commissioner is hard pressed to find meaning to this game then use some of the record setting revenues to reward players from winning squads. Up the ante, plain and simple. Let All Stars have the chance to earn tens or hundreds of thousands instead of token money (as compared to their skyrocketing yearly salaries). Or find new incentives. This is an All Star game, an exhibition, and should in no way have an effect on how the World Series is played or decided.