It’s been 20 years since commissioner Bud Selig declared the All-Star Game a tie, deadlocked at 7-all with neither team having enough pitchers to continue past the 11th inning. MLB atoned for this debacle by making the All-Star Game determine homefield advantage in the World Series, an overcorrection the league would later reverse in 2017.
With managers tasked with including as many players as possible, the All-Star Game remains a difficult balancing act, particularly in the later innings with pitchers running on short supply. To combat teams running out of players, and prevent a repeat of the embarrassing events that transpired in 2002 (a low point in the Mid-Summer Classic’s 91-year history), future All-Star Games will now be decided by a Home Run Derby in lieu of extra innings. This stipulation can be found in Exhibit 13 of MLB’s new collective bargaining agreement, agreed to by players and owners earlier this week.
And that’s not all. Per Ronald Blum of the Associated Press, MLB has discussed a potential mid-game concert (similar to the ones staged at both the Super Bowl and NBA All-Star Game) with the league still working out “details and logistics.”
Unlike its NBA, NFL and NHL counterparts, it’s hard to jazz up baseball in an exhibition setting. However, a winner-take-all derby headlined by fan favorites like Padres slugger Fernando Tatis Jr. and reigning American League MVP Shohei Ohtani would, at the very least, be a more entertaining alternative to traditional extra innings.
Though baseball has found success of late leaning into its inherent nostalgia (that strength was never more evident than at last year’s “Field of Dreams” game in Iowa), MLB has often been labeled as archaic and out of touch, inaccessible to younger, millennial fans with shorter attention spans. That perception has come at great expense to baseball’s overall popularity, though it seems the sport is making a concerted effort to right its past wrongs in this regard, finally adapting to the changing media landscape by improving tentpole events like the All-Star Game and its ongoing international series with upcoming regular season games planned in Mexico City, London, Puerto Rico, Tokyo and even Paris.
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