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The NL wins the All-Star Game for the first time since 2012
Last night, the NL All-Stars beat the AL All-Stars 3-2, for their first win since 2012 and only their 4th since 1997.
Here's the box score and lineups from the last time the NL won.
I've never really understood why the AL seemed to be so much better in this game against the NL, but it's nice to see the league win one, even if no Brewers appeared in the game.
They seem to have long stretches where one league dominates for a crazy long time. From 1950-1987 (a span of 38 years) the National League record was: 33 Wins - 8 Losses - 1 Tie.
From 1988 - 2022 (a span of 35 years), the American League record was: 27 Wins - 6 Losses - 1 Tie
Overall, The American League barely leads the series 47 wins - 44 losses - 2 ties.
My all-time favorite moment in these games (and one of my fav baseball moments of all-time) was Fred Lynn's grand slam during the 1983 game... it came at the tail end of the American League losing streak and gave us American Leaguers hope...
47 second clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSTMFcUg67Y
15 minutes: entire 3rd inning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cVKrTyTw1o
That's so weird -- I didn't know about these other droughts. Truthfully I don't pay much attention to the all star game (I haven't watched one in idk how long) and only posted about this one because the streak was finally broken. But it sort of defies logic to think that extended droughts exist like this in an exhibition game of each league's best players haha. Thanks for sharing.
(Speculation)I have 3 suspicions:
• Each league has specific players during their dominant years that were elected to the ASG constantly and performed well.
• The AL implementing the Desginated Hitter in 1973.
• The birth of free agency in 1972.
I have no idea how the All-stars competition works (is it a competition?) or who plays in it.
But for a moment I was:"Wait... The Netherlands (NL) has a All-star team?" ... Guess I'm a bit to Eurocentric.
But congrats to National League!!
It's a mid-season exhibition game between the year's "best" players in each league, National and American, which comprise the two halves of Major League Baseball.
I put best in quotation marks because rosters have a few rules regarding their makeup: first is that the starters are voted on by the fans. So the league's actual best shortstop may not be the starter for the game because another team's fanbase voted more for a different popular player. It's a little silly in that way, but it's an exhibition game. (There used to be actual stakes in the game, and whichever league won would be given home field advantage for the world series. That was really dumb, but it was removed a few years ago.)
The other requirement is that every team has to have a representative. In fact, this year's MVP (Elias Diaz) is not one of the statistical leaders at catcher this year but Colorado had no other representatives so he was chosen ahead of some of the "better" catchers in the NL.