I gotta admit I was pretty stunned when I heard David Wright isn’t going to be the starter at third base. I had been reading reports that he had been the vote leader and figured it was in the bag.
I snickered when I read the below which was published by ESPN this morning at 10am:
Said a reporter: “You were up by 450,000 votes over Pablo Sandoval with two days to go. You’re leading the league in batting average. …”
Countered Wright: “We were up seven games with 17 to play.”
I still don’t get what happened. Fans rallying to vote I can understand but did the Giants fans all stay up late to sneak attack the system?
Anyway it’s an All Star Game that most people now hate, and I particularly enjoy. I have every game since 94 on “tape” (VHS/DVD). I love it.
As for R.A. Dickey, someone needs to go to LaRussa’s house and make him read the book. You HAVE TO start this guy. It’s a great story and let it have the happy ending it deserves. Starting Strasburg or someone doesn’t matter. Then it’s just another guy starting an All Star Game. Let the aging knuckler from nowhere start. THAT”s a good story.
I hope Johan Santana makes it. You guys didn’t vote for Murphy proving you all suck and that Giants fans are more whimsical.
Finally, I notice one name from the Marlins didn’t make the list. Stupid Wilpons.
I made this comment over on Paul’s Random Stuff, but here’s my theory on Panda-gate:
The Giants may have had two things in their favor (as discussed by some friends at work). One is the Silicon Valley factor — when voting went online only, all those computers in Northern California really went to work. (I don’t think this had that much of an effect.) The other — which I think was the difference, considering that Wright led in every ballot update — is the fact that the Giants were home last week. In the past few years, we’ve been seeing teams host “voting parties” during games. They set up computer terminals somewhere on the concourse and fans come by and cast their maximum 25 votes per email address during the game. So the fact that the Giants were home last week and the Mets away — and that Sandoval passed Wright between Tuesday (when the latest NL votes were revealed) and Thursday (when voting ended) — was big. In fact, the Giants had a “Super Tuesday” event at the ballpark last week to get people to vote Panda (and Posey and Melky, who also made a surge in the final days). I think that’s what helped Panda overtake Wright, Melky pass Braun and Posey garner the most votes in the NL.MLB tries to regulate the in-stadium opportunities for fans to vote by giving each team the same number of home dates for the punch-hole ballots. They may need to regulate the in-stadium voting parties, too, so that teams that are home in the final week don’t have an advantage over the teams on the road.