The Royals play the National League All-Stars

The Royals play the National League All-Stars June 22, 2015

Voting for baseball’s All-Star team used to involve going to a game and then, between innings, punching out the chads next to the player you thought was best at his position.  But then some of the voting went online.  This year all of the voting is online.  You don’t have to go to a game and you get to vote up to 35 times.

So fans of the Kansas City Royals (the team that first got me interested in baseball) have been stuffing the virtual ballot box.  Yes, the Royals are having a great year.  But that doesn’t mean all of its starters are the best at their positions.  And yet, as of last week, the voting would mean that Royals players would start at all positions in the All-Star game except for one slot in the outfield, which is being taken by Angels superstar Mike Trout.

Now it’s likely that fans of bigger-market teams might wake up to what is happening and vote their players in.  But, people, you are supposed to vote for the best player, not just vote for the members of your team!

From Barry Svrluga, How the Kansas City Royals are owning the All-Star Game voting – The Washington Post:

Here’s what you need to know about the run-up to the 2015 All-Star Game next month in Cincinnati: Omar Infante of the Kansas City Royals is hitting .204, has the worst on-base-plus slugging percentage of any American League second baseman, and could eventually be benched in favor of a prospect. Yet currently, he would be the starting second baseman in the midsummer classic.

This isn’t an isolated incident, some sort of fluke. The Royals are in first place in the American League Central and are coming off a franchise-altering, pennant-winning season. Now, they appear intent on taking over the All-Star Game. They haven’t had a starter voted in by the fans since 2000. This year, they could have – get this — eight.

The latest AL voting updates were released Monday afternoon, and if the balloting ended now, the starting lineup would include Eric Hosmer at first base, Infante at second, Alcides Escobar at shortstop, Mike Moustakas at third, Alex Gordon and Lorenzo Cain in the outfield, Salvador Perez at catcher and Kendrys Morales at designated hitter.

What an outcast Mike Trout must feel like. The Angels outfielder is the only non-Royal who would be a starter as of now.

How is this happening? Consider that Monday, just after noon Eastern time, the Royals sent the following from their Twitter account (renamed, temporarily, #VoteRoyals):

Remember those days of sitting in a ballpark and taking a pen to poke through five or 10 All-Star ballots, stuffing the box for your favorite players? Those are gone. This is the first year Major League Baseball went to exclusively online voting. And the Royals, more than any other team, have pounced.

[Keep reading. . .]

"I rather enjoy video clips that feature animal rescue stories. In a typical scenario, a ..."

Hope in a Time of Secular ..."
"So much of Scripture expresses a kind of loving exhortation (paraenesis) that says, "This is ..."

Hope in a Time of Secular ..."
"Turing proposed to answer the question, "Can machines think?" with what is now called the ..."

The Martin Luther Chatbot
"Having read the questions asked to Lutherbot and their respective answers, I would much happier ..."

The Martin Luther Chatbot

Browse Our Archives