@MarkKnudson41
Major League Baseball has the best All-Star game and events among the four major sports and it’s not even close.
The Future’s games, the uber-popular Home Run Derby followed by an actual, real baseball game between two squads who are trying to win. IN terms of just effort alone it tops the other three sports by a mile.
But maybe, just maybe, there’s a way to make MLB’s All-Star break even better?
The National Hockey League, an outfit that has tried several machinations of an All-Star game, including a USA v The World contest, might have finally struck the right chord. The recently completed “Four Nation’s Face Off,” featuring national teams from Sweden, Finland, Canada and the United States proved to be a smashing success. The final, which saw Team Canada edge Team USA 3-2 in overtime, was the highest rated televised NHL game ever. Everyone is already hoping that it gets brought back in the future.
It’s no secret that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has a hands-on, ‘even-if-its-not-broke-lets-fix-it’ mentality. Former players and die-hard fans alike despise his almost total disregard for the game’s time-honored traditions. Manfred is much more business man (a “transactional attorney” as one person who knows Manfred described him) than baseball fan. He’s always looking for ways to attract a wider, non-traditional audience and he doesn’t seem to care which part of the actual game on the field he tramples on.
For example, Manfred has already spearheaded rule changes like the pitch clock (very popular with fans who are in a hurry to get the game over with), limiting pick off attempts, larger bases, the extra-inning “ghost runner” rule, limiting mound visits by catchers and managers, and the latest, the electronic “pitch challenge” for ball and strike calls for both pitchers and hitters, which is being experimented with in spring training this year. Traditionalists are beside themselves. We’re just lucky that every crazy idea that crosses his desk, like the incredibly dumb “Golden At-Bat rule doesn’t get enough traction.
Still, if there’s a way to grow his audience and his income, Manfred is all over it.
If you go back a few years, there was a substantial change, in the form of a non-traditional spring training tournament that was implemented almost two decades ago by Manfred’s predecessor, Bud Selig. It’s called the World Baseball Classic. Manfred inherited it, but he could make it even better than it already is.
The WBC is an international baseball tournament that began in 2006, featuring a large number of current big leaguers, as well as players from other national professional leagues, all playing for their respective countries. The last WBC was in 2023, with an epic final showdown between then Los Angeles Angels teammates. Shohei Ohtani was on the mound to close out the game with a 3-2 lead, and with the count full, Ohtani struck out his Angels teammate Mike Trout to end the game…with an estimated 54 million viewers watching in Japan alone.
After the qualifying rounds (similar to the Olympics) are held the year prior (and they’re going on in other parts of the world right now), the final stages of the event, which is held every three or four years. Nations that qualify then advance to the last stages of the tournament which is held during spring training in various spots around the world, including places Puerto Rico, Tokyo and Los Angeles.
Over its two decades, the WBC has been an enormous success.
But it could be even bigger.
What if MLB decided to do this: Do what they NHL just did and take two weeks off (the current All-Star break is almost a full week already) in the middle of the season to hold its own four team WBC Finals in place of the All-Star game every third or fourth year?
This would take some doing of course, but that’s Manfred’s wheel house, right?
You’d have to start that MLB season a week earlier (which wouldn’t bother the players who are ready for spring training to be over well before it actually is) and make other schedule adjustments that could allow for that many days off. But imagine if this July, instead of an All-Star game, MLB was hosting Cuba, Japan, Mexico and the USA in a four-team tournament in Atlanta.
How huge would that be for baseball?
How many more fans did the sport of hockey gain over the past two weeks?
As the hockey tournament showed once again, there is no substitute for nationalism in sporting competitions. Put “USA” across the front of a uniform, and everyone’s watching.
Is the Evil Genius Rob Manfred?
None of his predecessors, including Selig, would have considered such a thing. But Manfred? He just might.
