Should All Stars play the entire game?

[cjclong]

Let's put aside the question of whether the fans select the right players. Should players in the starting line up be allowed to play for 9 innings? When the All Star game first started players like Ted Williams and Stan Musial played all 9 innings. Williams hit a famous home run to win one of the games. Now a starting player gets pulled after 3 or 4 innings. I understand the concept of giving different players a chance to play, but at the same time it can insure the very best players may be on the bench if the game is decided in the 8th or 9th inning. Any thoughts?

[OaklandAsFan]

IMO the "very best" players are usually on the bench to start the game while the "most popular" players are on the field.

Ryan Howard has almost 700k votes for christsakes and he hasn't stepped foot on the field once!

[godwulf]

1. It's supposed to be an exhibition game.

2. The purpose of the game should be to showcase the players the fans want to see - period.

3. It's supposed to be an exhibition game.

4. The outcome should maybe determine which manager buys the other a steak dinner - nothing else.

5. It's supposed to be an exhibition game.

6. Like in any other game, most players probably want to play all nine innings - too bad.

7. See #'s 1, 3 and 5.

[cjclong]

The question as stated wasn't whether the fans vote in the best players (and the players votes are often for the same players as the fans). The question is
should a player who starts the game automatically be replaced just to give another player the chance to appear. When I first started watching All Star games in the 60's they were competitive and players like Willie Mays often played the whole game which is what I think the fans wanted to see.

[gingi79]

I'm in the camp of people who think the very best 20 players in each league should be elected as All Stars by fellow players. They should be awarded the honor should awarded during the World Series and they should stop playing an actual game. I find these things have become a boring circus of faux stars in my opinion and every league has had top tier players bow out to take a break rather than play.

For the record: the NHL, the NBA and the NFL should follow suit. Of course that's just my opinion and no one really cares what I think but I opine anyway.

[coxfan]

I think as many as possible should get in, because its an honor and something to keep on your list of memorable MLB moments. For that reason, I have always opposed Selig's making it the arbiter of home-field advantage in the WS; his logic would dictate only the best players getting in. (Not to mention the fact that both the NL and the AL have had very long winning streaks in the past; one of those weird things about baseball's defiance of probability laws that make it so interesting).

Exceptions should be allowed for any player who wants or needs to spend the three days with family, and who could thus be replaced by some Alternate selected; or who needs rest before his team's next game.

I also think the managers should have no say in picking the players, because it puts managers on the spot with their own guys. Overall selections should be some combination of the fans and the players' voting.

But eliminating the game would take away a tradition that goes back for decades. When I was an undergraduate at UGA in the late 60's, it was traditional for hundreds of students to pack the downtown Varsity to watch the All-Star Game on its color TV. At that time, there were no color TV's in any dorm and TV's weren't allowed in dorm rooms. ( And the only computer on campus was a million-dollar giant taking up a whole floor.) When those things changed, the tradition died, and the Varsity is now a "Five Guys". But still All-Star tradition exists in many ways around the country.