2014 Baseball All Star Teams Announced
The starters and reserves for the Baseball All Star Teams have been announced, with not a whole lot of surprises this year. Colorado Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and Toronto outfielder Jose Bautista were the top vote getters in the National and American Leagues. Tulowitzki leads the National League in batting average (.350 after games of July 6th) and is the league leader in Wins Above Replacement (WAR) at 5.0. Bautista is hitting .296 with 17 homers and 51 RBIs. The Oakland Athletics have six players on the A.L Roster, and the Milwaukee Brewers have four on the N.L. team. Both teams have the best records in their respective leagues.
The game will be played July 15th at Target Field in Minneapolis.
Here’s a look at the American League starters:
And the National League starters:
A few random, rambling observations on this year’s selections. Derek Jeter of the Yankees will be playing in his 14th All Star Game as he wraps up his career. As is often the case, players who have had Hall of Fame caliber careers and are fan favorites usually are selected for the All Star game. Jeter’s numbers this year are off a bit as would be expected for a 40 year old, but he’s hitting .273, still pretty good for shortstop not named Tulowitzki. The Chicago White Sox’ Alexei Ramirez (.286) was picked as a reserve shortstop.
The voters fell asleep on the choice of Baltimore’s Matt Wieters as the A.L. staring catcher. Wieters went out for the season in May with Tommy John surgery. Kansas City’s Salvatore Perez will start in his place. Speaking of Baltimore, Nelson Cruz, who had a 50 game suspension for performance enhancing drugs last year, was voted in as a starter. Forgive and forget we guess. Cruz is having an excellent season, and we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s clean.
Chicago Cubs pitcher Jeff Samardzija was picked for the National League team, but was traded to Oakland over the weekend, so he can’t play. The silver lining for him is that he’s been traded to a team with a real good shot at the World Series, as opposed to the Cubs who are in the 12th year of their five year rebuilding plan.
Perhaps the best news for fans attending the game is that there will be self service beer stands at Target Field. Fans will buy cards similar to gift cards that will be preloaded at $10, $20, or $50, and the dispensaries will allow a fan to purchaseup to 48 ounces of beer every 15 minutes.
I, for one, do not want to sit next to some guy who can drink 48 ounces of beer in 15 minutes.
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@eric – I changed Sport Team to Mark (with his permission, of course) so now you can call Sport Team Mark, unless of course you like to call Mark Sport Team 🙂
Thank you, VJ. I like the avatars. His looks like a turquoise crab, so I would’ve probably guessed. Plus, of course, we are the only two on the comment section (ha, ha).
Hey Sport Team, we were (ok, I was) talking about consecutive things. I brought up the consecutive no-hitters (by the same pitcher). Do you know who did it?
Btw, for you other readers, this is a very obscure question, so please don’t think less of the S.T. if he doesn’t know it (this is a 98th percentile question).
That would be Johnny Vander Mere of the Cincinnati Reds, who threw consecutive no hitters in June of 1938, first against the Boston Braves at home in Cincinnait, and then again in his next start on the road against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Incidentally, the game in Brooklyn was the first night game ever played at Ebbets Field.
Impressive. Almost too impressive. How much did you have to look up? Or you the next Ken Jennings of Sports Jeopardy?
How many ways can a batter reach (safely, of course) first base without getting a hit?
Off the top of my head: base hit, walk, hit by pitch, error, catcher’s interference, and strike three that gets past the catcher and the batter reaches first before he is thrown out.
I couldn’t remember the opposing teams, so I looked that up. I knew the rest.
No base hit (sneaked by me, I only counted), but add fielder’s choice.
Still nicely done. The name and team were all I could remember. My buddy was this crazy trivia guru. He told me that there is a rule where if a pitcher is announced and he doesn’t throw a pitch, the batter is awarded first base. So, imagine you’re the visiting team, you announce a guy pitching who is a crazy leadoff hitter (I used to think of Deion Sanders), but probably not a starter: announce him as your starting pitcher, then, go figure, replace him with Greg Maddox at the end of an inning.
Last one: who was the last switch-hitter to be A.L. MVP?
btw, thx. This is way better than talking about old or dead Europeans.
So, I guess if it’s game 7, I’m going to start Deion, lead him off, then have him throw one pitch. Veeck style.
Hint: sadly Eddie Murray never was MVP.
Wow, that’s a tough one. Only one I can think of is going way back to when Mickey Mantle was MVP.
Way obscure. Money to be made in sports bars. Vida Blue, 1971 actually batted both ways that year. That and above courtesy of Craig Duncan, the only one I’ve ever known that was close to the Swami.
Very sporting of you tonight. Thanks
Also, spreading the word on movies by Shane Carruth: Primer (his first, done for $7-8,000) and then Upstream Color. Crazy. Makes Eraserhead and Sunshine of the Eternal Spotless Mind seem like Disney.
Are you kidding? How can you not want to watch some guy down the equivalent of 16 beers an hour? You just have to just make sure he’s between you and the aisle. Seriously, though, it would be better than sitting in front of him.
Great article. I think Tulo may be the best SS since A-rod was a Mariner.