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From: ryan@fremen.DEC (Mike Ryan	DTN 264-8280 MK01-2/H32)
Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball
Subject: All-Star voting: total BS!
Message-ID: <2755@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Jun-85 14:05:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.2755
Posted: Tue Jun 18 14:05:17 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Jun-85 12:51:46 EDT
Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP
Organization: DEC Engineering Network
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Having the fans vote for the All-Star team is absurd!!!  The result
is that the All-Star team consists of players

A. who are heading for the Hall of Fame - in 5 years (i.e. - Rod Carew),
or
B. play for teams in cities where ballot-stuffing for the locals is the
tradition. "Vote early and often for the players on our team"...

As opposed to the players who are playing like All-Stars this year.  Also,
with the ballots printed up so early, rookies and players who haven't done
well in the past don't show up on the ballots and thus don't stand a chance
of winning the vote.  

Fenway has a little class about it, at least - there is no mention of
the Red Sox players, fans are told to vote for "the most deserving players
in each league".  And the fans here do, which means the only starting Red
Sox player will probably be Oil Can Boyd.

I mean, hell, the last I heard Rich Gedman was running LAST among AL 
catchers!   That is absurd - he's in the top 10 in the league in batting 
average, has 5 homers and 30 RBIs, has been throwing out runners 
consistently all year (the Toronto Blue Jays can tell you a thing or two
about him - they lead the league in stolen bases, but in several attempts
in their series against the Sox they only got one stolen base off Gedman;
he also picked a Blue Jay off second).  And if you don't think the catcher
has a little something to do with it when your young starters are
performing like the Red Sox starters (Boyd, Clemens, Ojeda, Nipper) have
been, you just don't know baseball.

The All-Star teams should be elected by the players, so we have All-Star
teams consisting of the best baseball players rather than the most
popular.

Mike Ryan
ARPA:	ryan%fremen.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA
UUCP:	{decvax,allegra,ihnp4,ucbvax,...}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-fremen!ryan