Defending Fan Voting
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by user Xinoph
While it's become fashionable of late to attack the fan balloting process - especially if your favorite player, or players from your favorite team, weren't leading in the last voting update - fans voting for the MLB All-Stars is an important tradition that shouldn't be eliminated, thought it could be reformed.
There are certainly things about the voting process, and the All-Star game itself, that should be changed. Giving every fan 25 votes seems a little silly; in most elections a person gets one vote, and there's no reason baseball should be any different. One vote per fan. That would make it harder for teams with passionate fans to dominate the voting; while they might still have more fans, their fan's dedication (or knowledge of the voting process) wouldn't make it easier for their players to get elected.
The problem with eliminating fan balloting is that no other process makes any more sense. Do it purely by statistics? OK, but what statistics? What if a guy has a .350 average but 20 errors on the season; does he get in? What kind of formula should one work up, if one used statistics? The fact is that using statistics would be just as controversial - if not more so - than fan voting. While it might be exciting to follow statistical rankings day-by-day to see who gets in, if a guy got sick for five days in the final week of the process he'd be screwed. So, doing it entirely based on statistics doesn't make a whole lot of sense, either.
So we're back to voting, then. How about somebody else votes besides fans? Let's say, players. What makes you think players voting would be any different than fans voting? Though the proportion of people with extensive knowledge of the game would be higher, it would still be a big popularity contest. Guys who aren't popular amongst the other players, but who are great ballplayers, would never get selected. Guys with lesser statistics but who are more likeable would see a lot of All-Star games. Players voting is probably no better or worse than the fans voting, ultimately.
Having the managers vote for All-Stars is another possibility. They would be even more knowledgeable than the players, and less likely to turn it into a popularity contest. But fourteen, or sixteen, people is an incredibly small base of people to have select a team. And probably a quarter to a third of those managers would vote for their own guys, meaning the Commissioner might have to step in and settle a lot of All-Star voting disputes. I think we can all agree that we don't want to involve Bud Selig in the process any more than absolutely necessary.
That's actually another interesting possibility: have the Commissioner's office fill the All-Star team by appointment. But is having one man, regardless of what position he currently holds, select the All-Stars really better than having fans vote? Probably not. Even if he's a beloved Commissioner who engenders little controversy, having him (or her) select the All-Stars would draw unnecessary ire towards a job that already gets a lot of heat. So, having the Commissioner choose is out.
There is, of course, another way to do it: having the AL and NL managers select all the players. Though this might work in some years, in other years it would be a disaster. Some managers would be trusted enough throughout baseball to select a good team; others wouldn't be, regardless of their success the previous year.
As it stands now, MLB uses a combination of all of the above techniques - except statistics, though of course they play a part in the voting process - to select the All-Star teams. The players vote for pitchers, and the fans vote for position players. The manager and the Commissioner's office fill the roster to 31 players, and replace players who decline to participate. With both democracy and baseball being such a huge part of American society, it makes absolute sense that baseball's All-Stars be chosen through a voting process.
This doesn't mean the process couldn't, or shouldn't, be changed and reformed as time goes on. Of course it should be; any system should be flexible and open to change. Giving each fan one vote instead of twenty-five might be a good reform for MLB to start with; then teams would only have an advantage in the voting process if they had more fans, rather than if their fans cared enough to use all their votes.
The fact is, no matter what process MLB uses to select its All-Stars, there will be controversies, and there will be problems. There are always controversies. It's part of sports, part of America, part of humanity. Controversies aren't a bad thing. In fact, they're part of the fun - let's be honest. What we want to avoid is situations like the 1957 game, when a Cincinnati newspaper printed pre-marked ballots as part of a promotional campaign. As a result, the Reds found themselves with starters at every position but first base; the Commissioner had to step in and correct the situation, and for eleven years fan voting was taken away.
Let's hope that never happens again. We don't give up on democracy because of problems at the ballot box, and we shouldn't give up on fan voting just because it occasionally creates problems. It's a huge part of the game now, and while it should be open to reform, it shouldn't ever be eliminated.
Date
Sun 07/02/06, 6:59 am EST
