Taiwanese pitcher Chih-Wei Hu (胡智為) was the only player from Asia in Major League Baseball’s All-Star Futures Game in San Diego on Sunday and pitched an inning for the victorious World Team. (He was both AL Rookie of the Year and MVP in 2001.) In the runup to the 2016 All-Star break, Ichiro was just 10 hits shy of 3,000 in Major League Baseball and was hitting.337 in 71 games.
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Also in the lineup: Fall Out Boy, Andra Day, Rachel Platten, Empire of the Sun and more. It featured five players from the hometown Padres, the worst pitching performance in All-Star Game history, the first-ever run batted in by a Blue Jays player and the first home run by a representative from the Mariners. To make the event “meaningful” again, Bud made a decision to give the league winning the game of stars home-field advantage in the World Series. Jones, the greatest draw in Padres history – when he pitched, although his time was short, it was insane, a World Series atmosphere – was the club’s first pitcher to make an All-Star team (1975) and he started the game in 1976, the year he had an NL-record 16 wins at the break and won the Cy Young Award.
Gwynn, who died in 2014 after a battle with salivary gland cancer, was primarily known for being one of the greatest pure hitters of all time.
Are there other festivities around the All-Star Game? Last year’s victor was the American League, which took a 6-3 victory.
Does the All-Star Game matter? The accolades from his brilliance at the plate overshadowed an outstanding defensive career, particularly early on: Gwynn won five Gold Glove Awards over a six-year span from 1986-91.
Additionally, the All-Star team managers are always the skippers of the teams that were in the World Series the previous season. If you fizzle out or land on the disabled list by August, no one takes away your All-Star appearance. At Play Ball Park, kids can take part in events like MLB’s Pitch, Hit, and Run competition and the T-Mobile Jr.
After all, home field advantage in the freakin’ World Series is at stake here! In 2015, he blasted a leadoff home run off Zack Greinke, then of the Dodgers, and scored two runs in a 6-3 A.L. win in Cincinnati.
In 2013, Mariano Rivera of the Yankees said goodbye to the Midsummer Classic, playing in his final All-Star Game. Angels star Mike Trout, through his first six seasons, has been following in Griffey’s footsteps.
Here’s a quick bio on each of the players, so you can prepare for the game. This is because an American League stadium hosted the All-Star Game in even-numbered years and a National League stadium in odd-numbered years – until this year.
There are three days of All-Star events to keep track of.
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Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes will make his first All-Star Game start, and second appearance overall. If I were a Cub fan, I’d sure want to do anything I could to ensure that the sixth and seventh games, if necessary, would be played at Clark and Addison.
