Tonight, Marlins Park will stand as host to the 88th annual MLB All-Star Game. And I have to say, I’m pretty excited.
Although my team-of-choice, the Chicago Cubs, isn’t very well represented (*cough* it’s rigged* cough), there’s a ton of new and exciting young players participating and that is always fun baseball. But do you know how players make it the All-Star game?
If you weren’t aware, balloting for the 2017 All-Star game began on May 1 and ended on June 29. The top vote getters at each position (including the DH in the AL) become the starters for their respective league.
Then there’s this #FinalVote thing, wherein one additional player from a list of five from each league gets one last shot to make it. But this year’s top vote getter, Bryce Harper, has a unique idea to spice things up.
In short, Harper wants the top vote getter from each league (which would be him this year, lol), to be picked as captains and draft their teams schoolyard style.
In other words, this year, Aaron Judge and Harper would get to go one-by-one and draft their team out of the players from both leagues. The result would be a two team mash-up of AL and NL players, potentially playing against their own teammates!
Like Harper said, who wouldn’t want to see him step up to the plate against Max Scherzer?
I don’t think the league has any plans on switching to this format anytime soon, but it’s certainly a fun and different idea. They’ve already eliminated the home field advantage aspect of the game, so why not just blow it up into something new altogether?
What do you think: Good idea or bad?