All Star Game and HR Derby, 2022

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The best of news: Clayton Kershaw has been named to start the game in his home park. MLB made the announcement in a Monday news conference.

Kershaw had come close to being the All-Star Game starter several times before.

During Kershaw’s first All-Star-caliber and Cy Young-winning season in 2011, Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies got the nod. For the 2013 game hosted by the New York Mets, the host team’s ace, Matt Harvey, was picked over him.

In his 2014 MVP season, Kershaw was second in line again, following Adam Wainwright of the St. Louis Cardinals. And since then, he’s twice seen teammates get the honor, with Zach Greinke starting in 2015 and Hyun-Jin Ryu in 2019.

The honor, however, had always eluded the best pitcher of the club’s generation.

Until this year, that is, with Kershaw now set to achieve one more milestone at the mound in Dodger Stadium.

The Home Run Derby can take a toll on its participants. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen to this year’s group. It’s televised on ESPN beginning at 8:00 PM EDT, 5:00 PM PDT, 2:00 HST.

In case you’re paying attention to the MLB Draft, “The Dodgers were the one team without a first-round pick in 2022. Their top pick fell 10 spots due to exceeding the competitive balance tax threshold, and their first selection is No. 40 overall.” They used that pick on a catcher: Dalton Rushing of Louisville. He just completed his junior year there, and he did pretty well: he batted .310 with 62 RBIs, 23 home runs, 68 runs scored and four stolen bases.

Mookie Betts has bouts of self-doubt, just like the rest of us.

Just in time for the ASG, screenwriter/director Ron Shelton has published a book detailing the making of Bull Durham, one of the most beloved of baseball movies. It’s called “The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit.”

78 thoughts on “All Star Game and HR Derby, 2022”

  4. This offends me, and I suspect I’m not alone. If the ASG is tied after nine innings, there will a three-man HR Derby to settle it.

    The managers of the American League and National League squads will each select three players (and one alternate, in the event of an injury) on his roster who have agreed to participate, as well as three coaches to throw batting practice.Each player will get three swings, and the team with the highest combined homer total after those three rounds will be declared the winner of the game.

    What the hell is this for? Every previous ASG has gone into extra innings when tied at nine (13 times — not all that many), and this is just another gimmick like the “runner at second to start every extra inning” nonsense.

    Manfred’s even worse than Selig as Commissioner. I didn’t think that was possible.

    • Personally it’s a “meh” for me. It’s the All Star game. If it brings more eyeballs to baseball, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Tying in the ASG to home field advantage in the WS, in my opinion, was more egregious.

      However: Commissioners in general are definitely getting worse. ManFred Man is really not good.

  15. Color me disappointed that Clayton will not get the W, and Tony could get the L.

  19. Kershaw smiling and joking in the dugout and then kept smiling on the mound. He had fun.

    • He is enjoying this year for sure. If they win the WS – and maybe even if they don’t – this really could be his last season.

  23. This has been a fun first inning. Kershaw with the pickoff, that spectacular DP and Goldie’s HR. All preceded by Mookie getting the crowd to wish Rachel Robinson a Happy 100th Birthday.

  26. Geez, I just signed on and read the latest few comments and most of it is negative.

  30. Why? Why I’m a watching this game? Almost guaranteed I will be disappointed and far more frustrated than I should be for a silly exhibition game.

    • “The specter of the late Cobb, baseball’s most famous sociopath and unabashed racist”

      That smells of someone who read Al Stump’s hatchet job of a Cobb bio. Many if not all of the slurs presented there were debunked by Charles Leerhsen’s 2015 bio.

    • It’s an ESPN blackout, so I’m only paying casual attention via MLB app. No visuals. I was sorta hoping for Tío Albert to go all the way.

    • He was cheerful and hit more homeruns than anybody else for second place. Kind of like our elections.