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They rigged the vote—big deal!Some guy at the bar wanted to involve me in a long discussion about the fraudulent baseball All-Star Game voting. Even when I vawned in his faee heO'refused to clam up. It is not something to get worked upover.The fans’ plebiscite is almost as legitimate as “Rolling Stone” magazine’s readers' poll to determine the best radio station in the country.The baseball vote is incalculably more honest than the rigged newspaper poll conducted by radio station WWWE to pick Pete Franklin’s talk show successor. At least baseball waits until the votes are counted to pick the winners and it even discloses the vote count, two well-established electoral procedures ignored by WWWE.“But look what they did in Oakland,” said the guy who was intruding on my happy hour.“So they rigged the vote. Big deal. The All-Star Game vote has been rigged for years. ByDan Coughlinsheer numbers, big markets and teams that draw the most fans logically dominate the voting,” I said.“Yeah, but in Oakland the fans ran their ballots through a machine at the Oakland Coliseum. The machine automatically voted for all the Oakland players,” complained my drinking neighbor, who is easily outraged.This kind of stuff has been going on since the first dead man voted in Chicago. It’s not going to undermine the Republic. Not even the democratic process is perfect.In the 1050s the fans voted byusing ballots printed in the daily newspapers in major league cities.But in 1957 a Cincinnati paper ran a ballot that was preprinted with a Cincinnati player at every position. As a result, the National League All-Star team looked like this:IB—Stan Musial, St. Louis2B—Johnny Temple, CincinnatiSS — Roy McMillan, Cincinnati3B—Don Hoak, CincinnatiOF —Frank Robinson, CincinnatiOF—Gus Bell, CincinnatiOF~Wal!y Post, CincinnatiC—Ed Bailey, CincinnatiThis was advocacy newspapering at its finest. All-time greats such as Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Eddie Mathews, Roy Campanella and Hank Aaron were buried under an avalanche of pre-printed ballots. The only reason Musial slipped in there was Cincinnati’s transition period at first base, with George Crowe taking the job away from Ted Kiuezewski.Baseball commissioner Ford Frick, the second-worst travesty ever in that office, made two colossal blunders. First, instead of using the leverage of his position to impose a cease and desist ultimatum on Cincinnati, he sat on his hands and awaited the predictable consequences. After they occurred he stepped in and made some changes in the National League lineup. Bell and Post were told to stay home. Hoak and McMillan were yanked after one at bat.But Frick’s most egregious mistake was to retaliate against the fans by taking the vote away from them after the 1957 fiasco. If the All-Star Game has any meaning, it is the fans’ participation in the voting process. This is what builds the pre-game hype. The publication of weekly vote totals is a running promotional campaign unmatched in any sport.Commissioner Bowie Kuhn later returned the vote to the fans and despite its blemishes and inherent inadequacies it serves the game well.So Oakland had three players voted onto the American League starting lineup. Compared to Cincinnati in 1957, the Athletics ran a real piker of a campaign. Only catcher Terry Steinbaeh, who was hitting .214 with 17 runs batted in last time we looked, is a glaring injustice.Fortunately, we’re not talking about something that matters a great deal. The All-Star Game isan exhibition that, is even less important than a spring training game because no jobs are at stake. Some players actually prefer to stay home. Pitcher Rick Reuscbel of San Francisco, for example, appeared in two of them so when he was picked this year he said no thanks. He’s getting married Tuesday instead.The mid-summer classic, as it was called, once served a purpose. Before the television age, it was an opportunity for the fans in one city to see stars from the other league whom theywould never see again.TURN TO PAGE D-2
Newspaper Details
The Chronicle Telegram
Elyria, Ohio, US
Sun, Jul 10, 1988
Page 20
Full Page
Clipped by
Nathan O.
OH, USA 17 Nov 2021
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