Why Fans Only Account for 1/3 of All Star Voting

It’s History time on the Horn & Bell!

The All Star game, love it, hate it.. it’s the halfway point of the season and you can look at it as the season is halfway over or that you still have half a season left. Either way it means voting for who you feel deserves to be on the All Star team for the league of your choice. For us IronPig fans it means the AAA All Star game between our beloved International League and the Pacific Coast League.

As usual, Major League baseball rules on everything filter down and AAA follows their All Star voting rules as well.

To begin, the first Major League All Star game was played at Comiskey Park in Chicago in 1933. The American League defeated the National League by a score of 4 to 2.

For AAA, the first All Star game was held on July 23, 1956. From 1956 to 1978, the IL All Star team faced a Major League team. (No idea how either team was selected) There was no All Star game again until 1983 and 1984 with the same format. The All Star game then returned in 1988 with the format of American League affiliates vs. National League affiliates as there were 3 leagues in AAA at that time. (The American Association folded in 1997) Since 1998 the current format of IL vs PCL was established and has been played every year since.

So the whole voting thing. I will use Major League baseball criteria.. well as I stated before AAA follows on the heels of the big leagues. Up until 1946 the managers of each All Star team picked their teams. That was until 1947 when fans were given the opportunity to vote. Ha Ha HA! Let us pick! Big smiles! This lasted almost 10 years until 1957 when Cincinnatti Red fans got an idea. The Cincinnatti Enquirer printed pre-filled ballots to the Red’s favor and sent them out with every paper making it easier for fans to vote. And boy did they vote. Red fans elected just about the entire team, the only non-Red to be voted on that team was Stan Musial. Commissioner Ford Frick was not happy and appointed Willie Mays and Hank Aaron to replace two of the Red’s players and immediately decided to remove the fan vote. From there on to 1969, Managers, Coaches and Players selected the teams. In 1969 the league sent out equal amounts of ballots to each team to prevent ballot box stuffing.. the number is said to have been about 400,000 total. With the dawn of online voting, it seems that everyone has a chance to vote, as we all do… but computers monitor how many submissions are made and to avoid fans drowing the ballot.. Managers and Media have more pull than us.

Could you imagine the viewing audience of an entire team of IronPigs playing in the AAA All Star game? Remembering it’s a business, these leagues sell advertising and want folks from every city to watch the game and thus, somehow, at least one player from each team is selected.

Even though our votes don’t really count for much in the All Star voting, it is a source of pride for us fans. If we can vote our team to lead “Fan Voting” it tells these guys we are behind them, so make sure to vote for our IronPigs before the deadline, June 24th.

OinK!