The All-Star Game - Popularity Contest or Merit Award?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In this pit thread, people are complaining about deserving players(based on their stats) not being selected by the voters for the All-Star game.

Several dopers(including me) argued that game is a popularity contest. That it is fan favorites, not the best of the year, that are to be selected.

Others argued that this idea is feeble-minded hogwash. The game is for the best players of that season, and personal preference should not play a role in determining an All-Star Vote.

Mind you, I’m not asking what you think the game should be, but what the game is.

Popularity contest? Or Merit award? And is that what was intended? What say you?

2

Fan voting, by it’s nature, makes it a popularity contest. It also turns out, by the nature of sports, that the best players are the most popular. There’s a reason why Barry Bonds is a household name and Clay Bellinger is not: that Barry Bonds is a far better player.

The combination of the two usually results in the best players being elected by the fans. There have been, however, times where the commissioner stepped in and removed a player’s choice in favor of a far more deserving candidate.

Manager’s selections, OTOH, should be based on merit alone.

Zev Steinhardt

3

This year, for a change, I have no real beef with any of the fans’ Al-Star selections. There’s only ONE blatantly undeserving choice, Cal Ripken JR. And since Cal is an all-time great who’s retiring this year, I don’t begrudge him a final tribute from the fans.

Now, are fans sometimes irrational? Sure. Do they sometimes pick sentimental favorites, rather than deserving players? Sure. Do they sometimes pick mediocre players they LIKE over great players they don’t like? Again, sure.

But who’s MORE objective?

I know, let the managers pick the All-Stars! Joe Torre would never load the All-Star roster with 7 of his own players!

Okay, sorry, bad example.

Well then, let the sportswriters pick the All-Stars! They’re completely objective. I mean, if Albert Belle led the majors in every major offensive category, the sportswriters would NEVER deny him the MVP award and give it to Mo Vaughn, just because Mo is a nice guy and Albert treats sportswriters with contempt.

Okay, sorry, that was ANOTHER bad example.

I know, let the players pick. They’re all highly intelligent guys, who know the game, who are completely objective, and spend hours thinking about their choices before they cast votes. (Except, of course, for the players who give their ballots to the batboys to fill out… as many former players freely admit they usually did!)

Yes, in theory the All-Stars should be the best players. But since ANY system in which human beings vote is going to be flawed, I don’t see why the fans’ stupid/biased choices are any worse than anybody else’s stupid/biased choices.
P.S. Though, as a responsible adult, I TRY to make intelligent, rational choices for All-Stars, I recall how, as a kid, I joined with my brothers and friends in writing in “PETER LA COCK” on thousands of All-Star ballots, just because we thought that was a hilarious name (“huh huh… Peter AND cock in the same name! huh huh…”)

4

Maybe ol’ Joe had a premonition that he won’t be managing the all-star game next year . . .

5

I think it’s got to be a popularity contest. After all, part of the rules for All-Star rosters are that they must (despite Joe Torre’s wishes) include at least one representative from each team. Not every team has a player that deserves to be called an All-Star; this rule is there to ensure broad fan appeal.

What I’d love to know (minor hijack here, but not really) is what’s up with the managers selected as coaches for the All-Star team. I mean, if there’s any element of merit to those selections, why the heck did Joe Torre pick Tony Muser of all people? The best thing you can say about him is that his managing ability is unproven; more likely, he’s genuinely terrible.

6

But at least Mo Vaughn has the kind of stats and impact that would make him a defensible choice. You might not specifically agree, but you wouldn’t feel like the selection was outrageously weird. We’re at least going to have the sense to not vote for Joe Triple-A, who just fell off the minor league truck, or Jim Washedup, whose best seasons were 10 years ago.

By the way, I am a sportswriter … and we’re probably about as vengeful toward players who treat us like jerks as you figured.

**

What the hell is wrong with you? Ben Dover and Oliver Clothesoff were much more deserving selections!

7

But Snooooopy, Pete Lacock was a real player in the 70s (presumably when astorian was engaging in ballot stuffing).

Zev Steinhardt

8

  1. The managers of the previous year’s World Series are the managers of the All-Star Team and get to name the pitchers, reserves and the coaching staff.

  2. ZEV: When has a commissioner stepped in a substitued one player for another?

  3. What’s up, Opal.

9

In 1957, Cincinatti fans went wild with the ballot stuffing, electing seven Reds to start. Ford Frick* replaced Gus Bell and Wally Post with two guys named Mays and Aaron. That incident caused the fans to lose the vote until 1970.

Zev Steinhardt

10

Thanks, Zev! Hadn’t heard that before . . .

11

You’re welcome. I also seem to have in the back of my mind somewhere that Bucky Dent, while hitting about .180 or so was elected to start an All-Star game but was replaced with someone more deserving. Unfortunately, I can’t find any corroboration of this at the moment, so I can’t confirm it. Maybe one of our real baseball experts (like BobT can come up with it).

Zev Steinhardt

12

By golly.

13

As Cub announcers of my youth never tired of telling us fans, LaCock was the son of some Hollywood actor or other…if memory serves it was someone who shared his first name but not his last, which I always thought odd. Peter Marshall, maybe. I always figured they kept talking about it because it distracted from the fact that LaCock couldn’t hit well enough to stay in the majors for long as a shortstop, and he was a first baseman…

And if you liked the name Pete LaCock, how about Rusty Kuntz…a name that never failed to send me through the floor…“Oil 'em, will ya!”

Oh, BTW, the game is clearly a popularity contest, which is too bad, but I don’t suppose it will ever be much of anything else. For the most part the selections are pretty good and have been through the years, especially considering the lack of safeguards and the voting abuses recorded through the years…

14

In short:

All-Star selection by fans’ voting is a popularity contest.

All-Star selection by managers’ choice is a favoritist circle-jerk.

Oh well.

15

No, the selection of Vaughn over Belle for 1995 AL MVP was just based on Belle being a jerk. Look at the numbers.
------------AB H 2b 3b HR RBI R TB BB BA SLG
_Belle 546 173 52 1 50 126 121 377 73 .317 .690
Vaughn 550 165 28 3 39 126 98 316 68 .300 .575

16

Look, I’m not opposed to popularity influencing the final decision. I have no problem with a player like Vaughn, who has excellent numbers and is a decent guy, defeating a guy who has more excellent numbers and is a jerk, like Belle. When you’ve got to make a decision between several players who have all performed really well, popularity is as good as any reason. But the numbers gotta be there first. If the most popular player in the universe is hitting .200 and has made 50 errors (here I’m thinking hypothetically, not making an allusion to Cal Ripken), he shouldn’t be there, and the voters should realize that.

17

Peter Marshall it is. Peter Marshall’s real name was Pierre LaCock, which for obvious reasons he changed on beginning his entertainment career.

As for the All-Star Game, since you say you’re not asking what the game should be but what it is, the question seems to me pointless. The definition of an All-Star is “someone who’s selected to the All-Star Team”. If you try to posit a different definition, you’re into the realm of what it should be. Popularity is certainly a big part of it, but merit is a big part of popularity (though they’re certainly not identical).

My preference for selecting the teams would be to let everyone in on it: continue the fan balloting, and add player/manager/coach and press ballots as well. Fan selections make the team as starters, unless both the press and players select someone else at that position (and they select the same player). In that event, the fan selection makes the team as a reserve. Let the fans, field personnel and press vote for four pitcher slots as well, with the fan selections making the team automatically along with any pitcher selected among the top four by both the players/managers/coaches and the press but not selected by the fans.

Assuming total agreement between the fan balloting and the other ballots, you’d then have twelve slots filled. Maximum disagreement, and you’d end up with twenty-four slots filled. At a roster depth of 30, you’d still have between six and eighteen slots for the manager of the team to select additional worthy candidates. I’d prefer to see the rule requiring one player from every team eliminated until there’s some sort of sane revenue sharing arrangement in place, but even if there’s not, with at least six discretionary slots the manager ought to be able to accommodate that.