With a deep roster of bankable talent and a host of new rules, this year’s MLB All-Star Game did what other leagues wish they could do: Make people care.
Is the MLB All-Star game…back? It’s been a tough run for all professional sports regarding these mid-season festivities. The NBA seems to change its format each year, none of which gets the game any closer to its ultimate goal of presenting an All-Star game that features a lick of defense or anything resembling competitive, high intensity basketball. The NFL Pro Bowl has long been an afterthought, a meaningless way to pass the time between the Conference Championships and the Super Bowl. The MLB All-Star game used to be the way the league would decide which team would have home-field advantage in the World Series, but that went away before the 2017 season. Since then, the game has been adrift. On Tuesday, for the first time in nearly a decade, though, the mid-season classic was captivating.
Some of it had to do with machinations or implementations made by the league. The commissioner’s office lucked into the game ending the ninth inning in a tie so the sport could showcase its new signature extra innings method: a homerun contest. The tiebreaker, decided upon in 2022 under the collective bargaining agreement, is explained as such: “The managers of the American League and National League squads will each select three players (and one alternate, in the event of an injury) on his roster who have agreed to participate, as well as three coaches to throw batting practice. Each player gets three swings, and the team with the highest combined homer total after those three rounds is declared the winner of the game.”
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It gave the game a thrilling and dramatic conclusion, and incorporated the one aspect of the sport everyone loves: absolute bombs. The NL ended up winning the tiebreaker, but the victor was almost entirely besides the point. The result was unimportant, not because it was deemed meaningless back in 2017, but because the spectacle was that exciting. This, coupled with the sheer dearth of genuinely exciting ballplayers, made this the first truly memorable all-star game the four major U.S. sports has seen since Fergie sang the National Anthem at the 2018 NBA All-Star Game.
Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported that the league is seeing its product back on the upswing, which was confirmed by the number of people that tuned into the All-Star Game. He wrote on X: “The 7.2 million viewers for the All Star Game is the largest TV audience since 2017, reflecting the increase in regular-season ratings the first half of the MLB season.” Much of that is likely what I like to call the Shohei factor, but Ohtani isn’t the only thrilling athlete the game has to offer.
Jacob Misiorowski, a 6’7” fireballer playing for the Milwaukee Brewers, was given a nod despite being a rookie. It angered some players, with a number of Philadelphia Phillies lamenting their quality starters who were looked over in favor of the young stud. “It’s turning into the Savannah Bananas,” outfielder Nick Castellanos added. Is that such a bad thing? Considering the All-Star Game is purely for fan entertainment? After all, the baseball equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters have more TikTok followers than any team in Major League Baseball. The league’s decision to spotlight their most exciting young talent with airtime is a shrewd business tactic.
Elsewhere, America continued to grow enamored with Cal Raleigh, a switch-hitting catcher for the Seattle Mariners with the iconic nickname of Big Dumper. Francisco Lindor and Aaron Judge continue to be marketable superstars for the New York Mets and Yankees alike, and there are a number of young stars that run faster, hit the ball further, and throw it harder than any of their predecessors. Add all that up, and you’ve got a pretty exciting product to roll out to fans. Will baseball become the top pastime in the U.S. again? It’s too soon to tell. But it’s a few days after the game and people are still talking about a professional all-star game. That’s a win.
Will Schube