DiCaro: Royals Voting Mania A Good Excuse For All-Star Game Reform
By Julie DiCaro--
(CBS) If MLB's All-Star voting ended today, the American League would start a team consisting of eight Royals and Angels outfielder Mike Trout.
At first glance, this may not seem like much of a problem, as the Royals, the defending AL champions, currently lead the AL Central by 3.5 games and are unquestionably a quality team.
But the current AL All-Star tallies aren't the natural outcome of the popular vote (fans vote the positional player starters in) as much as the end-game of a scheme concocted by a bunch of fans in Kansas City with too much time on their hands and too much of an investment in the All-Star Game.
While fans have been using social media to start grassroots campaigns to get individual players elected to the team or starting lineup for years, this is the first time we've seen fans stuffing the virtual ballot box on this scale.
To reiterate: Every single positional player on the Royals, with the exception of Alex Rios, who has the misfortune of playing the same position as Trout, is leading the All-Star vote at his spot. This includes second baseman Omar Infante, who entered Wednesday hitting .221 with a .536 OPS, zero homers and 17 RBIs and was in danger of being benched Kansas City manager Ned Yost.
I hold the extremely unpopular opinion that using the All-Star Game to determine home-field advantage for the World Series is crazy amounts of fun, despite being glaringly aware of its pitfalls. After all, how can MLB place such importance on the Midsummer Classic while still insisting on "everybody gets a trophy" rules, like the protocol that every team much be represented in the game?
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says he's open to changing the way voting is conducted in the future if the fan vote turns out to be detrimental to the All-Star Game. The national eyebrow raising over Kansas City's mutiny is the perfect opportunity to overhaul more than just the fan vote. It's a chance for Manfred to completely reboot the All-Star Game and what it means for baseball.
For starters, Manfred needs to get rid of the fan vote.
It's obvious from political elections across the nation, as well as the People's Choice Awards, that Americans can't be trusted to vote for the best people in any given circumstance. So stop letting fans -- at least some of whom are responsible for "Two and a Half Men" being in syndication -- have any say in the All-Star Game. Let the National League and American League managers pick the best roster from each league.
Also, don't require every team to have a representative in the game. That's for tee-ball, not a game that determines something as important as home-field advantage in Game 7 of the World Series.
While Manfred is at it, he should do away with the rule that chooses the managers based on whose teams were good the previous season. Take the two managers with the best record on June 15 and have them manage the game. Managers who have a shot at the postseason have something invested in the outcome, other than making friends and pleasing fans. Just imagine if the All-Star Game was played all-out by a bunch of guys desperately trying to win home-field advantage for their team's possible postseason run.
Kansas City-vs.-the World isn't a thing, nor should it be. By attempting to hold America hostage over the AL lineup, Royals fans have done baseball a great service. They've finally given Major League Baseball the excuse it needs to take fans out of the process and make the All-Star Game the Midsummer Classic it was meant to be.
Julie DiCaro is an update anchor for 670 The Score. Follow Julie on Twitter @JulieDiCaro or on Facebook. The views expressed on this page are those of the author, not CBS Local Chicago or our affiliated television and radio stations.