All Star Game: Not Every Team Deserves a Representative
By David Hill
In an effort to make fans of each team pay attention to the All Star Game, it has been decreed that every team needs a representative. This has to end.
It is a tradition where, every year, baseball fans gather around, waiting to see who will represent their team in the All Star Game. No matter how brutal the team may be playing, or how awful the players, someone is going to get that honor. It is how we got to “enjoy” Mark Redman, Lance Carter, Mike Williams, and Mike Sharperson get announced at the exhibition.
Meanwhile, every year, players that deserve to make the roster are left off. Kirk Gibson did not make the All Star Game in 1988, despite winning the MVP award. Bob Knepper got the nod though. Bret Saberhagen was a Cy Young award winner in 1985 and 1989. He did not make the All Star Game either year.
The list goes on and on. Chipper Jones: 1999 MVP, not an All Star. But Ed Sprague was. Robin Yount was bypassed for Devon White in 1989. Greg Maddux was a perennial All Star, but not in 1993. Corey Kluber was not an All Star in 2014, but Erick Aybar was. In 1956, Don Newcombe won both the Cy Young award and the MVP, but was not an All Star in the most egregious snub of all time.
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Even worse, some of these players were not even the best players on their ballclubs. Mark Teahan had an All Star worthy season for the Royals that year, but considering how putrid they were, Ozzie Guillen may have pulled a name out of a hat. Quite frankly, that would explain some of these selections.
The answer is simple: end the farce of every team having an All Star. In theory, this is an exhibition where the fans can see the best players in each league face off against one another. Sometimes, a team does not have a player that deserves to be in the same league as those stars. Putting the likes of Aybarm Sprague, and Carter into the All Star Game is an embarrassment, for them and the game itself.
While there will always be snubs, the players missing the game may not be as egregious. And, it is not as though a team cannot have an All Star, as long as they have the performance to back up the selection. The days of seeing Mark Redman being announced at the MidSummer Classic would be over.
Next: Indians wasting Tyler Naquin
It is time. Stop giving every team an All Star representative. Not all of them deserve one.