Before Sunday’s game Alex Cora was asked about his memory of the 1999 All-Star Game at Fenway Park, which was played exactly 26 years prior. The Red Sox manager pointed to seeing Ted Williams greeted on the field by all of the game’s best players before throwing out the ceremonial first pitch, which he called a special moment in the sport’s history.
Without prompting, Cora then offered a lament regarding the state of the All-Star Game today.
“It should be like that every time, I think the All-Star Game is a special one. I understand and we’re living through it with our ace, he went nine yesterday and he’s not going to pitch in the All-Star Game, but I think we’ve got to do a better job to get the best of the best out there,” Cora said, referring to Garrett Crochet. “I don’t know if moving it back to Wednesday or making it a whole week event or something, but there’s too many All-Stars.”
Since its inception the All-Star Game has aimed to showcase the sport’s best on the same field at once, but whether because of injuries or other factors, many players selected in a given year don’t participate. That results in numerous replacement players being added to the roster, and this year the total number of All-Stars has reached 81, including 17 who have opted out.
One particularly controversial replacement was made over the weekend, when Milwaukee rookie Jacob Misiorowski was selected as an All-Star despite having only five MLB appearances and 25.2 innings to his name.
Two of the Red Sox’s three All-Star selections have elected not to participate as well. Alex Bregman won’t play because he was just activated from the injured list, and Crochet opted out of the game in order to rest up after pitching 129.1 innings in the first half.
Veteran closer Aroldis Chapman is expected to be the lone Red Sox player to take part in Tuesday’s game, which will be played at Truist Park in Atlanta starting at 8 p.m.
