MLB Baseball

How to Fix Baseball, Part II: Fix the All-Star Game

This is the second part in a multi-post series on ideas – some new and some not – for fixing what’s wrong with baseball. For Part I, click here.

This year’s MLB All-Star Game is scheduled for Tuesday, July 15th at Target Field in Minneapolis.

That sentence contains one of the several things that are wrong with the Mid-Summer Classic. TV ratings for the All-Star Game, in concert with the World Series, have been dropping precipitously:

MLB All-Star Game Ratings
TV Ratings for the MLB All-Star Game (blue) and World Series (red) since 1968. World Series ratings are the average for all World Series games in that year. (Data: Baseball Almanac)

Baseball has tried to tinker with the All-Star Game to increase its ratings, evidently to no avail.

The haphazard way Major League Baseball handles the All-Star Game makes it seem like they’re trying to hide it from public view. That has to change, and it doesn’t take much effort to do so. Here is what should be done:

End the World Series Home Field Advantage Thing

This was the dumbest idea ever actually implemented by a major league in the history of professional sports.

The All-Star Game is a mid-season exhibition.

Home field advantage in the World Series needs to go to the team that had the best record in the regular season. It is something to be earned over the course of the season. That’s that.

Play the Game on Sunday Afternoon

Why is the All-Star Game held at 8:30 p.m. in the middle of July? That is TV death. And as we know, it’s all about TV ratings. Having the All-Star Game on a Tuesday night every year makes as much sense as holding Election Day on the same day of the week: None.

MLB All-Star Game 2014
MLB is in danger of no one caring about its most important summer event.

MLB’s All-Star Break should be over a weekend. The one travel day with no regular season games can be on Friday, when no one watches TV anyway. Everyone heads into town, and we get ready for a weekend-long celebration of baseball starting on Saturday. More on that later.

The actual game should take place on a Sunday afternoon/evening to accommodate TV audiences. First pitch should be right around 4 p.m. Eastern time, which would put the game’s end around 7:30 p.m. Eastern. This is perfectly in line with national NFL Sunday games. Holding sporting events on Sundays at 4 p.m. Eastern/1 p.m. Pacific works in the TV business for a reason.

Adopt Softball’s International Tiebreaker in Extra Innings

The commissioner’s absurd tinkering of the MLB All_Star Game can be traced back to the 2002 game in Milwaukee, when, upon both squads running out of pitchers, Bud Selig famously threw his hands up in the air, said, “Ah, what the hell,” and decided to end the game after 11 full innings.

This alone would not have been the end of the world. In 1961, one of the two All-Star games played that season ended in a 1-1 draw (although, to be fair, it was called due to rain after nine full innings). It should be noted that this was when two games were played in a year – one in an NL park and the other in an AL park. This only happened from 1959-1962.

But Bud Selig overreacted, and changed the rules to ensure that, as the following games’ slogan said, “This Time It Counts,” misguidedly believing that putting home field advantage in the World Series on the line would make the players play harder or something. The ineptitude of this policy was compounded by the 2008 game in Old Yankee Stadium, which went 15 innings – four longer than the game that ended in a draw. It was an absurd idea then, and it remains so now.

Fortunately, College Softball has the answer to the Running-Out-of-Players-Because-the-Game-Went-Too-Long problem. It’s called the International Tiebreaker.

In the top of the first extra inning, the last player scheduled up in the inning is put on second base with no one out. The inning is played out from there. Yes, a runner can be sacrificed home easily before the third out. That’s the point. The inning moves along, and multi-inning stalemates are avoided. It also puts the onus on the pitcher and defense to make a play to win the game. But the bottom line is, it shortens things dramatically while adding some much-needed drama to the mix.

Introduce All-Star Saturday

Since we’re here and the All-Star Game would be on a Sunday, let’s turn the day before into a festival of the game. Yes, we have the Home Run Derby, but this event takes forever and should be shortened. We can also try a few new things. Here’s what I’d schedule:

Hardest Thrower Contest

Four pitchers from each league get five pitches – Yes, just five, for those of your worried about injuries – and throw their hardest stuff. Fastest pitch on the radar gun wins.

Fastest Runner Contest

Each league puts up their three fastest guys. They have to hit a pitch from a BP pitcher – and hit it fair – and then run the bases as quickly as possible. Fastest time from the crack of the bat to touching home plate wins.

Longest Arm Contest

Each league puts up three players with their best fielding arms. Each starts 250 feet from home plate in center field, and throws their best laser home. The ball has to be caught on the fly by a catcher at home. Longest throw caught on the fly wins.

Home Run Hitting Contest

Yes, this already exists. But it DRAGS ON AND ON. Here’s how you fix that:

Each league puts up four hitters. In the first round, each hitter gets just three outs – not the current ten (!) – to hit the most home runs possible. And no more taking dozens of pitches. If you take a pitch, it’s a strike. Get in there and hit.

The top two hitters advance to the final, and again get three outs to hit as many home runs as possible.

Given the significance of the All-Star Game to baseball as a showcase of the greatest players in the game, it’s time to fix what’s wrong with it. The good thing is, unlike most other issues with the game, these issues are relatively easy to fix.


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One response to “How to Fix Baseball, Part II: Fix the All-Star Game”

  1. […] and Houston Astros have switched leagues in the past 15 years. The freakin’ All-Star Game determines home field advantage in the World Series, for crying out loud. What is so sacred about baseball that makes it […]